Juggernaut

I may have sounded just a touch hysterical. Kemp certainly looked at me as if I were.

'You're not kidding me?'

'Jesus, maybe I should have brought one of the bodies as evidence.'

'Bodies?'

'They happen in a war.'

I looked along the road. The rig was crawling towards us, but ahead of it was the extra tractor, driven by Mick McGrath. I waved him down and he stopped alongside, alive with curiosity. Everyone had seen the sudden activity of our military escort and knew something was up.

'Basil, get the rig stopped. Better here than too close,' I said.

Kemp looked from me to the rig, then slowly unhooked the microphone from the dashboard of the Land Rover. Stopping the rig was a serious business, not as simple as putting on a set of car brakes, more like stopping a small ship. For one thing, all three tractor drivers had to act in concert; for another the rig man, usually either Hammond or Bert Proctor, had to judge the precise moment for setting the bogie brakes, especially on a hill. Although they were all linked in a radio circuit, they were also directed by a flag waved from the control car; a primitive but entirely practical device. Now Kemp poked the flag out of the car window, and followed his action with a spate of orders over the mike. McGrath got out of his tractor and strode over. 'What's going on, Mister Mannix?'

'A war.'

'What does it look like over there?'

'Like any old war. Hussein got shot up from the air and lost four tanks. One of them should be no trouble to move, but three are blocking the road. We'll need your help in clearing the way.'

By now several of the men were milling around talking. McGrath overrode the babble of conversation.

'Any shooting up there now, Mister Mannix?'

'No, and I don't think there will be. We think that both sides will leave us alone. We're precious to them.'

McGrath said, 'Any bad corners on the way there?'

'None that matter. It's pretty easy going.'

'Right you are then. I'll take Bert from the rig. Barry, you whip a team together and follow us up. Tell the fuel bowser boys to stay back, and leave the airlift team behind too. We could do with your car, Mister Mannix. OK? Sandy, go and send Bert to me, then you stay up there and tell Mister Hammond what's going on.'

He issued this stream of orders with calm decision, then strode off back to the tractor. I was impressed. He had taken the initiative in fine style and seemed to be dependable. It would be interesting seeing him in action if things got tough, as I was certain they would.

Kemp rejoined me and I briefed him and saw that he approved. 'He's a good organizer, is Mick. A bit hot-headed but then what Irish rigger isn't? Ben will stay here with the rig and the rest of the crew. A detachment of the escort can hold their hands. I'm coming with you. Get in.'

He made no apology for doubting that this might happen. The tension that had gripped him in Port Luard was returning, and I realized with something between horror and exasperation that what was bothering him wasn't the prospect of an entire country devastated by civil war, but the sheer logistic annoyances of any delays or upsets to his precious transportation plans. He was a very singles-minded man, was Kemp.

As we pulled out to overtake the tractor Kemp said, 'You mentioned bodies. How many?'

'I saw three, but there'll be more in the tanks. The rest have scarpered.'

'God damn it, as though we didn't have enough problems of our own without getting mixed up in a bloody war,' he grumbled.

'It could be worse.'

'How the hell could it be worse?'

The planes could have shot up your rig,' I said dryly.

He didn't answer and I let him drive in silence. I was thankful enough myself to sit quietly for a while. I felt drained and battered, and knew that I needed to recharge my batteries in a hurry, against the next crisis.

The scene of the air strike hadn't changed much except that the bodies had been moved off the road and the fire was out. Sadiq was waiting impatiently. 'How long to clear it, sir?' he asked at once.

Kemp looked dazed.

'How long, please?' Sadiq repeated.

Kemp pulled himself together. 'Once the tractor arrives, we'll have the tanks off the road in an hour or so. We don't have to be too gentle with them, I take it.'

I wasn't listening. I was looking at the ridge of hills ahead of us, and watching the thick black haze of smoke, several columns, mingling as they rose, writhing upwards in the middle distance. Sadiq followed my gaze.

'My scouts have reported back, Mister Mannix. Kodowa is burning.'

'Still reckoning on buying fresh vegetables there?' I couldn't resist asking Kemp. He shook his head heavily. The war had happened, and we were right in the middle of it.

McGrath and Proctor were experts in their field and knowledgeable about moving heavy awkward objects. They estimated angles, discussed the terrain, and then set about connecting shackles and heavy wire ropes. Presently McGrath shifted the first of the stricken tanks off the road as though it were a child's toy. The rest of us, soldiers and all, watched in fascination as the tank ploughed to a halt deep in the dust at the roadside, and the team set about tackling the next one.

Sadiq went off in his command car as soon as he was satisfied that our tractor could do the job, heading towards Kodowa with a cycle escort. The work of clearing the road went on into the late afternoon, and Kemp then drove back to the convoy to report progress and to bring the rig forward. He had decided that we would stop for the night, a wise decision in the aftermath of an exhausting and disturbing day, but he wanted to cover as much ground as possible before total nightfall.

McGrath and Proctor were resting after moving the upturned tank, which had been a tricky exercise, and gulping down the inevitable mugs of hot tea which Sandy had brought along for everyone. I went over to them and said, 'Got a spade?'

McGrath grinned. 'Ever see a workman without one? We use them for leaning on. It's a well-known fact. There's a couple on the tractor.'

Proctor, less ebullient, said quietly. 'You'll be wanting a burial party, Mister Mannix?'

We buried the bodies after giving the soldiers' identity tags to Sadiq's corporal. Afterwards everyone sat around quietly, each immersed in his own thoughts. McGrath had vanished, but presently I heard him calling.

'Hey, Mister Mannix! Bert!'

I looked around but couldn't see him. 'Where are you?'

'In here.' His voice was muffled and the direction baffling. I still couldn't see him, and then Bert pointed and McGrath's head appeared out of the turret of the tank that he hadn't needed to shift, the one that had run into the ditch. He said cheerily, 'I don't think there's anything wrong with this one.'

'You know tanks too?'

The army taught me. There isn't anything on wheels I don't know,' he said with simple egotism. Proctor, alongside me, nodded in his grave fashion.

I said, 'Can you drive it out?'

'I'm pretty sure so. This thing never got a hit. The crew just baled out and she piled herself up in the dust here. Want me to try?'

'Why not?'

His head bobbed down and after a lot of metallic noises the engine of the tank burst into noisy song. It moved, at first forward and digging itself deeper into the ditch, and then in reverse. With a clatter of tracks and to spattered applause it heaved itself out of the gulley and onto the road. There was a pause and then the turret started to move. The gun traversed around and depressed, pointing right at us.

'Stick 'em up, pal!' yelled McGrath, reappearing and howling with laughter.

'Don't point that thing at me,' I said. 'Once a day is enough Well, it looks as though we've just added one serviceable tank to the Wyvern fleet. Captain Sadiq will be delighted.'

CHAPTER 9

It was an uneasy night. Nothing more happened to disturb us, but very few of us got a full night's sleep; there was a great deal of coming and going to the chuck wagon, much quiet talking in the darkness, a general air of restlessness. The day had been packed with incident, a total contrast to the normal slow, tedious routine, and nobody knew what the next day would bring except they could be sure that the routine was broken.

The rig had reached the valley where the tanks had been hit, and was resting there. Kemp had no intention of moving it until we knew much more about what had happened in Kodowa, and Sadiq had taken him off at first light to look at the road. I had elected to stay behind.

Talk over breakfast was sporadic and I could sense the crew's tension. Certainly I knew they had been discussing their own safety and the chances of their coming through the conflict unscathed, with less than full confidence, and I suspected that Johnny Burke and Bob Sisley were pushing the shop floor angle rather hard. That could bear watching. I began to put some words together in my mind, against the time when I'd have to give them reasoned arguments in favour of doing things my way. They weren't like Sadiq's army lads, trained to obey without question.

Ben Hammond had gone with Kemp to look at the road. McGrath and three or four of the men were still playing with the tank, which they had cheerfully but firmly refused to turn over to the military until they had tinkered with it for a while longer. The others, including myself, were doing nothing much; everything looked remarkably peaceful and normal if one ignored the three tanks piled up in the gulley by the roadside.

When the interruption came it was heart-stopping.

There was. a mighty rush of air and a pounding roar in our ears. Men sprang to their feet like jack-in-the-boxes as five air force jets screamed overhead at low altitudes, hurtling up over the ridge beyond us.

'Christ!' A pulse hammered in my throat and my coffee spilled as I jerked to my feet.

'They're attacking!' someone yelled and there was a dive for cover, mostly under the shelter of the rig itself, which would have been suicidal if an attack had followed. But no missiles or bombs fell. The formation vanished as suddenly as it had appeared. Men resurfaced, staring and chattering. Soldiers grabbed belatedly for their rifles.

'Was it an attack?' Ritchie Thorpe asked me. Having driven up with me he'd been tacitly appointed the position of spokesman.

'No. They were going much too fast. I'm not sure they were even aware of us.'

'Where do you think they're going?'

'God knows.' I felt as if we were on a desert island, with no news getting through. 'Are you sure you can't raise anything on the radios? Any local station?'

'Sorry, Mister Mannix, It's all static. Everything's off the air, I think. Mister Kemp said he'd call in on the half-hour, so I'll be listening in then. Maybe he'll have some news for us.'

There was a distant roar and our faces snapped skywards again. One of the jets was returning, but flying much higher, and as we watched it made a big sweeping circle in the sky and vanished in the direction of the rest of the formation. For a moment it seemed to leave a thin echo behind, and then I stiffened as I recognized what I was hearing.

'Bert. There's another plane. A small one. Can you see it?'

He too stared round the sky.

'No, but I can hear it.' He raised his voice to a shout. 'Any of you see a light plane?'

Everyone stared upwards, and three or four of them scrambled up onto the rig for a better vantage point. It was Brad Bishop on top of the commissary truck who first shouted, 'Yes, over there!' and pointed south.

A moment later I'd seen it too, a small speck of a plane flying low and coming towards us. Longing for binoculars, I kept my eyes glued to the approaching plane and felt a jolt of recognition. I'd never been a flier myself, and though I'd logged hundreds of hours in small company planes as well as in commercial liners I had never developed an eye for the various makes, but this one I definitely knew.

'It's the BE company plane,' I called out. 'We've got visitors.'

'Where can they land?' Thorpe asked me.

'Good question. Kodowa's got a town strip somewhere but I don't know if it's going to be usable. He can't land here, that's for certain.'

But that was where I was wrong.

It wasn't an intentional landing, though. As the plane came nearer we recognized signs of trouble. It was flying in a lopsided, ungainly fashion. A thin trail of smoke came from it, and the full extent of the damage became visible. Part of the undercarriage was missing, and the tailfin was buckled out of alignment.

'She's going to crash.'

'Do you think the jets attacked her?'

I said, 'No - too high, too fast. That was a ground attack. Damn it, she's not a fighter plane, not even armed!'

We watched in alarm as it began a wobbly circle over the bush country, slowly spiralling downwards.

'Bring up the water carrier!' I shouted, and sprinted for the hire car. Three or four others flung themselves in beside me. The car was ill-equipped for bouncing off the road into the bush but with the Land Rover gone there wasn't much choice. The water tanker and some of the military stuff followed. I concentrated on charting the course of the stricken plane and on avoiding the worst of the rocks and defiles in front of me. The others clung on as they were tossed about, leaning out of the car windows in spite of the choking dust clouds to help keep track of the aircraft.

Soon it dipped to the horizon, then went below it at a sharp angle. I tried to force another fraction of speed out of the labouring car. The plane reappeared briefly and I wondered if it had actually touched down and bounced. Then it was gone again and a surge of dust swirled up ahead.

My hands wrenched this way and that to keep the car from slewing sideways in the earth. I brought it joltingly through a small screen of thorn bushes and rocked to a halt, and we looked downhill towards the misshapen hulk that had been airborne only moments before. , We piled out and started running. The danger of fire was enormous. Not only would the plane erupt but the bush was likely to catch fire, and we all knew it. But there was no fire as yet, and the plane was miraculously upright.

As we got to the plane a figure was already beginning to struggle to free himself. The plane was a six-seater, but there were only two men visible inside. Our men clambered up onto the smashed wing and clawed at the pilot's door. The water tanker was lumbering towards us and Sadiq's troops were nearer still; I waved the oncoming vehicles to a halt.

'No further! Stay back! If she burns you'll all be caught. No sparks - don't turn your ignition off,' I shouted. 'Wilson, you and Burke start laying a water trail down towards her.'

As one of the big hoses was pulled free and a spray of water shot out, the door was pulled open and the two men inside were helped out. I ran back to the car and brought it closer. One of the plane's occupants seemed to be unhurt; two of our men were steadying him but he appeared to be walking quite strongly. The second was lolling in unconsciousness, carried by Grafton and Ron Jones. As they came up to my car I recognized both new arrivals.

The unconscious man was Max Otterman, our Rhodesian pilot. The other was Geoffrey Wingstead.

Max Otterman was in a bad way.

He'd done a brilliant job in bringing his plane down in one piece, upright and more or less intact, but at a terrible cost to himself. His left arm was broken, and he had contusions and cuts aplenty, especially about the face in spite of goggles and helmet. But there was something more drastic and this none of us was able to diagnose for certain. He recovered consciousness of a sort in the car as we drove him and Geoff Wingstead back to the rig site, moving as gently as possible. But he was obviously in great pain and kept blacking out. We got him bedded down in the rig's shade eventually, after letting Bishop have a good look at him. Bishop had first aid training and was pretty useful for day-to-day rig accidents, but he didn't know what was wrong with Otterman, apart from being fairly sure that neither his neck nor his back was broken.

It was the most worrying feature so far of a very worrying situation.

Wingstead was in good shape apart from one severe cut on his left shoulder and a selection of bruises, but nevertheless both Bishop and I urged him to take things very carefully. He saw Otterman bedded down, then sank into a grateful huddle in the shade with a cold beer to sustain him.

The men tended to crowd around. They all knew Geoff, naturally, and it was apparent that they thought a great deal of their boss. Their astonishment at his unorthodox arrival was swamped in their relief at his safety, and curiosity overrode all.

Presently I had to appeal to them to leave him for a while.

'Come on, you guys. He doesn't exactly want to give a press conference just this minute, you know,' I said. I didn't want to speak too sharply; it would be unwise to trample on their good will. But they took my point and most of them moved a little way off.

Wingstead said, 'I'll have to thank everybody properly. You all did a damned good job, back there.' His voice was a little shaky.

'None better than Max,' I said. 'There's plenty of time, Geoff. Time for questions later too. Just rest a bit first.'

In fact I was aching to know what had brought him up to us, what he knew and what the situation was that he'd left behind him. Kemp and Sadiq should hear it too, though, and one account from Wingstead would tax him quite sufficiently. So I went a little way off, and saw Wingstead's head droop forward as he surrendered to the sleep of exhaustion. I was anxious for Kemp to rejoin us. He seemed to have been gone for ever, and I was eager to give him our latest piece of dramatic news. But it wasn't until nearly noon that we saw Sadiq's escorted car returning, and I walked down the road to intercept them.

'Neil. There's a pack of problems up ahead of us,' said Kemp.

'We haven't done too badly ourselves.'

Kemp's eyes immediately flashed to the rig. 'Problems? Have you been having trouble?'

'I wouldn't quite put it that way. Look, I'm damned keen to hear what you've got to tell, but I guess our news has priority. We've got visitors.'

'Who - the army?'

Sadiq had got out of the car and already had his glasses unslung, scanning the road. I knew he wouldn't see the plane from where we were standing, though. I'd have preferred to discuss the latest developments with Kemp alone, but Sadiq had to be told: he'd find out fast enough in any case.

'No. We were overflown by some air force planes but I don't think they were looking for us or had any business with us. But a small plane came up a while ago. It crashed - over there.' I waved my hand. 'It had been shot up, I think. There were two men on board and we got them both out, but one's badly hurt.'

'Who the hell are they?'

'You're going to like this, Basil. One's your boss. And he's in pretty fair shape.'

'Geoffrey!' As with the men, astonishment and relief played over Kemp's face, and then alarm. 'Who was with him - who's hurt?'

'It's our pilot, Max Otterman. He made a damn good landing, probably saved both their necks, but he's in a bad way. The plane's a write-off.'

It was sensational stuff, all right. They were both suitably impressed, and had more questions. After a while I managed to get rid of Sadiq by suggesting that the guarding of the plane was probably not being done to his satisfaction. He went away at once, to go and see for himself. Kemp would have gone along too but I detained him.

'You can look at the wreckage later.'

'I want to see Geoff and the pilot.'

'One's sleeping and the other's damn near unconscious. You can't do a thing for either just yet awhile. I'd rather you briefed me on what you've found out down there.'

Kemp said, 'The road is in good shape right up to the environs of Kodowa. The town is in a hell of a mess. It's been strafed and it's almost completely burnt up. The people are in shock, I'd say, and they certainly won't be much use to us, and there's not enough of us to be much use to them. It's a pretty ghastly situation. You're right it is a war.'

It was as much of an apology as I'd get.

'We didn't go right in because we got a lot of opposition. They felt ugly about anyone in uniform, and Sadiq didn't have enough force with him to do much about it. But we'll have to go back in eventually. Look, did Geoff say anything to you?'

'Not yet. I didn't let him. I want to hear his story as much as you do, but I thought he should rest up and wait for you to come back. Where's Ben Hammond, by the way?'

Kemp made a despairing gesture. 'You'll never believe it, but the damned troop truck broke down on the way back. String and cardboard army! Nobody knew what to do about it except Ben, so he's still out there doing a repair job. Should be along any moment, but Sadiq said he's sent some men back to give them support if they need it. There's nobody on the road. They shouldn't have any trouble.' But I could see that he was worried at having been persuaded to leave Ben out in the middle of the bush with a broken down truck and a handful of green soldiers. I didn't think much of the idea myself.

'He'll be OK,' I said hopefully. 'You'd better get yourself something to eat - and drink.'

'By God, yes. I could do with a beer.' He thought for a moment and then said, 'On second thoughts, no. We'd better go gently on our supplies from now on. I'll settle for a mug of gunfire.'

We exchanged humourless smiles. The slang term for camp tea had suddenly become alarmingly appropriate.

Ben turned up two hours later, hot, sticky and desperate for sustenance. Kemp broke into the newly-rationed beer stores for him; we hadn't yet told the men about this particular form of hardship and Kemp was not enjoying the prospect. Wingstead had slept steadily, and we didn't want to waken him. Otterman, on the other hand, seemed worse if anything. He tossed and muttered, cried out once or twice, and had us all extremely worried.

There must be doctors in Kodowa, but God knows how we'll find them, or whether they'll be able to help,' Kemp said fretfully. He was concerned for Max, but he was also disturbed by the increasing rate of entropy about us. The rapid breakdown from order to chaos was something he seemed ill-equipped to cope with.

'What do you plan to do?' Hammond asked Kemp.

'Go on into Kodowa this afternoon, with enough chaps of my own and of Sadiq's to make a reasonable show of solidarity. We have to locate their officialdom, if any, and find out the precise facts. And we're going to need food, and water - they ran a hell of a lot out of the tanker - and medical help. I'd like you both to come and I'll choose a few of the others.'

We were interrupted by Sandy Bing, coming up at the run.

'Brad says will you come, Mister Kemp. Mister Wingstead's awake.'

'Be right there.'

The awning had been strung up at the rig's side and under it Geoff Wingstead was sitting up and seemed a lot brighter. He reached up to pump Kemp's hand with obvious pleasure.

'You're all OK, then?' he said.

'Yes, we're fine. Problems, but no accidents,' said Kemp.

'I had to come up here and see for myself how you were doing. But I can't fly a plane and Max . . .' He broke off for a moment, then went on. 'Well, he's quite a fellow. They tell me he's in a bad way. Can we get help for him?'

Briefly, Kemp put him in the picture concerning the situation up ahead at Kodowa, or as much of it as we ourselves knew. Wingstead looked grave as we recapped the events of the past couple of days.

Finally he said, 'So we're OK for fuel, not too good for water, food or doctors. Well, you may not know it all, but you can probably guess that you're a damn sight better off here than if you had stayed in Port Luard. At least you're all alive.'

'Is it that bad?' I asked.

'Bloody bad. Riots, strife, total breakdown of authority. Shooting in the streets. Looting. Docks burning, police helpless, military running amok in every direction. All the usual jolly things we see on the nine o'clock news.'

'Oh, great. No getting out for us benighted foreigners, I suppose?'

'In theory, yes. But the airport's in rebel hands and the commercial planes aren't coming in. Kigonde's off somewhere trying to rally his army. I heard that Ousemane was dead, and that Daondo's managed to slip out of the country - which figures. He's a smart one, that lad. But none of the news is certain.'

Kemp, Hammond and I stared at him as he reeled off the grim facts.

'It's a shambles, and I don't quite know what we're going to do about it. I had to get up here, though. Guessed you'd not be getting regular news bulletins and might feel a bit lonely without me.'

Too true, Geoff. We all feel much better now,' I said sardonically, and he grinned at me. 'Yes, well, it didn't seem too difficult at first. I asked Max if he was game and he couldn't wait to give it a bash. And we'd have done all right, too, only . . .'

He paused for a moment.

'We'd seen the air force types streaking about here and there, taking no notice of us. And quite a lot of ground movement, tank troops, armoured columns and so on, but no actual fighting once we were clear of Port Luard.'

'How did you achieve that, by the way?'

'Oh, real Boy's Own stuff. It'll make a good tale one day. Anyway we figured we'd catch up with you about Kodowa. You're nicely to schedule, Kemp, by the way. My congratulations.'

Kemp snorted

'We reckoned to land there and cadge a lift back to you. There hadn't been any sign of the insurrection, you see, so we thought it was quieter up here. And then ... it all happened at the same moment. I saw you, saw the rig parked and we started to come in for a closer look . . . there were some military trucks quite close and I wasn't sure if it was your official escort or not. And then there was this almighty slam and jerk and Max said we'd been hit. Christ, I ... still can't really believe it. We hadn't seen any planes, couldn't believe we were being attacked. Max was superb. I think he was hit by a bit of metal, because he was already bleeding when he decided he had to put us down. It was a marvellous show, wasn't it, Neil? You saw it happen, didn't you?' 'Yes. It was great.'

He lay back against the pillow. 'I can fill you in with lots of detail about what's going on back in Port Luard, but I'm afraid I've come up here without a thought in my head about getting you all out,' he said apologetically. He was looking a little faded, I thought. I decided to let him rest, but perhaps in a more optimistic frame of mind.

'We've got a plan, haven't we, Basil?'

'You have?'

'Oh, yes,' Kemp said, playing along stoutly. 'Neil's idea really, and it's a very good one. We've every reason to think it may work. Look, I think you'd better rest up a bit. We're not going anywhere for what's left of today, not with the rig anyway. And the more rest you have now the more use you'll be to us tomorrow.'

Out of Wingstead's earshot we stopped and took a simultaneous deep breath.

'Do you think what I think?' Kemp asked.

'I do,' I said grimly. 'What I'd like to know is whether half of our gallant captain's men are rebels, or whether it was all nicely official from the start. Sadiq couldn't have known that Geoff was coming, but he may have left blanket orders to stop anyone who tried to get to us. He's inclined to be over-protective. Alternatively, he's got traitors in his ranks and doesn't know it.'

'Or he's one himself.'

'I don't think so. In that case he'd have immobilized us quite easily, long before this.'

'Are you going to ask him?' Hammond asked.

'Not yet. I think we should string him along a little. I suggest that we say nothing of this to anyone, and go ahead with the plan to inspect Kodowa a little-more closely. We need Sadiq for that, and as long as we keep alert, we may as well make the most use of him we can.'

When we breasted the rise and looked down, my first thought was that the problem was not that of getting beyond Kodowa but into it. Much of the town was still burning.

The central core of Kodowa consisted of two short streets running north and south and two intersecting streets running east and west. None of them was as wide or as well made as the great road on which we'd been travelling so far. This was the modern, 'downtown' area. The biggest building was three storeys high, or had been. Now it and most of the others lay in rubble on the streets.

The rest of the town had been of the local African architecture. But palm thatch burns well, and mud walls crumble with ease, and it looked as though a little section of hell had been moved into that valley. I don't know if the local authorities ever had any fire regulations, but if so they hadn't worked. Flames, driven by a wind which funnelled up the valley, had jumped across the streets and there wasn't going to be much left when the fires finally died. , Sadiq said, They have killed this place.' His voice sounded bitter.

I twisted in my seat. I was driving with Sadiq because Kemp and I had planned it that way. Kemp had packed the Land Rover and the car with his own men so that there was no room for me. The idea was that I should be at hand to keep an eye on Sadiq.

Where the road narrowed as it entered the town it was blocked by a slow moving line of ramshackle traffic, beat up old cars and pick-up trucks, bullock carts and bicycles, all moving outwards, and slowed even more by one large limousine which had stalled right across the road. Sadiq drove off the road and unhooked his microphone. I got out and went towards the stalled car. The hood was up and two men were poking about under the bonnet, one a Nyalan and the other one of the Asiatic merchants who seem to monopolize so much of small retail business all over Africa. In this case he was a Syrian.

I tapped him on the shoulder. 'Get this car off the road. Push it.'

He turned a sweaty face to me and grimaced uncomprehendingly. I made gestures that they should shift the car and he shook his head irritably, spat out a short sentence I didn't understand, and turned back to the car. That was enough. I leaned over his shoulder, grabbed a handful of wiring and pulled. The only place that car could go now was off the road.

The Syrian whirled furiously and grabbed my shoulder. I let him have a fist in the gut, and he sprawled to the ground. He tried to scramble to his feet and clawed under his coat for some weapon so I kicked him in the ribs and he went down again just as Sadiq came up, unfastening the flap of his pistol holster.

'You have no right to attack citizens, Mister Mannix,' he said angrily.

I pointed to the ground. A heavy cosh had spilled out of the Syrian's jacket and lay near his inert hand.

'Some guys need a lot of persuading,' I said mildly. 'Let's get this thing out of here.' The other man had vanished.

Sadiq's pistol was a better persuader than my voice. He grabbed four able-bodied men out of the milling throng and within three minutes the road was cleared. As he reholstered his pistol he said, 'You believe in direct action, Mister Mannix?'

'When necessary - but I'm getting too old for brawling.' In fact the small display of aggression had done me the world of good. I'd really been needing to let off steam and it had been the Syrian merchant's bad luck to have been a handy target. .

'I would prefer you do no more such things. For the moment please stay with your own men. Tell Mister Kemp I will meet him in the central square soon.' He was off before I had a chance to respond.

I pushed through the crowds and found our Land Rover parked at the intersection of the two main roads. Dozens of distressed, battle-shocked people milled about and smouldering debris lay everywhere. Our eyes watered with the sting of acrid smoke. Broken glass crunched under our boots as we picked our way through the rubble. The Nyalans shrank away from us, weeping women pulling their bewildered children from our path. It was incredibly disturbing.

It became obvious pretty soon that there was no one in charge; we saw no policemen, no soldiers apart from Sadiq's own troops, and no sign of a doctor, a hospital or even a Red Cross post. Attempts to get sensible answers from passers-by proved useless. Presently, utterly dispirited, we decided to withdraw.

The stream of refugees thinned out as we left the town but there were still a lot of them, going God knows where. But I was interested and pleased to see that on the outskirts Sadiq had set up the rudiments of a command post, and slowly his troops were beginning to bring order out of the chaos, reuniting families and doing a little crude first aid of their own. A makeshift camp was already taking shape and people were being bedded down, and some sort of food and drink was being circulated. It made me feel more confident about Sadiq.

We left him to get on with it. Our men were ready enough to give assistance, but we were not welcome and what little we had to offer wouldn't go nearly far enough. Kemp was anxious to keep our unit together; the crew were his responsibility and he was still thinking in terms of the safety of the rig. We drove back to our camp site in the dusk feeling very depressed.

Kemp went to give Wingstead an edited version of what we'd found. I settled down for a quiet cigarette while waiting for the meal that Bishop was preparing for us, and into the silence McGrath and Ron Jones settled down alongside me. Two cigarettes and one foul pipe glowed in the dusk.

'A hell of a thing, this,' Ron Jones said presently. The Welsh lilt in his voice seemed more pronounced than in full daylight. 'Shouldn't we be back there helping?'

'We can't do much,' I said. 'And I don't think Captain Sadiq really wants us. If he needs us he knows where we are.'

'We could spare them a bit of food, though.'

McGrath snorted.

'There could be five thousand people out there, Ron, and none of us is Jesus Christ. Five French loaves and two lobster tails?' I asked.

McGrath said, They get wind of our food stocks and they'll mob us, as like as not. I'd be happier with a gun in my fist, myself.'

'I don't know if you're right. Nyalans are peaceable folk. A gun may not be such a good idea. People tend to get the wrong impression when armed foreigners wander about taking part in someone else's war.'

'I'd still be happier with a gun in my cab,' he said. 'One of those Russian Kalashnikovs that the black lads carry, maybe. Better still, a Uzi like Sadiq has in his car.'

I glanced at him. 'You're observant.'

'It pays. I told you I was in the army once myself.'

'What rank?'

He grinned. 'Never more than sergeant. But I made sergeant three times.'

Ron Jones laughed. 'I never had the pleasure of army life,' he said. 'This is my idea of something to watch on the telly, not be caught in the middle of.'

Wingstead had said something similar. I reflected that a lot of men of my age were comparative innocents, after all.

McGrath said, 'Not this mess, maybe. But there are worse lives.' In the twilight he seemed even bigger than he looked by day, a formidable figure. He tamped down his pipe and went on, 'I've seen sights like this before though, many times, in other countries. It's all right for the soldiers but for the civilians it's very sad indeed. But there's nothing you or I can do about it.'

I had seen it before too. I thought back to my young days, to Pusan and Inchon, to the wrecked towns and refugee-lined roads, the misery and the squalor. I didn't want to see it ever again.

McGrath suddenly dug his elbow into my ribs.

'There's someone out there - with a white face. I think it's a woman!'

He scrambled to his feet and ran into the growing darkness.

CHAPTER 10

Her name was Sister Ursula and she was a nun, and how in hell McGrath had detected that she had a white face in the semi-darkness I'll never know because it was blackened and smudged with smoke and wood ash. Her habit was torn and scorched, and slashed down one side showing that she wore long pants to the knee. She managed it so decorously that it didn't show most of the time.

She was tired but very composed, and showed few signs of strain. I once knew a man who was an atheist; he was also a plumber and had done a week's stint in a convent fixing the water system. He'd gone in with the firm conviction that all religious types were nutters of some sort. When he finished I asked him what he now thought about the contemplative life. He said, Those women are the sanest lot of people I've ever met,' and seemed baffled by it.

I went to my gear and fetched out a bottle of whisky. This was no time to be following Kemp's camp rules. When I got back she was sitting on a stool surrounded by our men. They were full of curiosity but polite about it, and I was pleased to see that they weren't badgering her with questions. McGrath's eyes gleamed when he saw the whisky. 'A pity it's only Scotch,' he said. 'Irish would be better, wouldn't it, Sister?'

Her lips curved in a small, tired smile. 'Right now, whisky is whisky. Thank you, Mister - Mannix, is it?'

I'd have said that she was about thirty-five, maybe forty, but she could well have been older; it's never easy to tell with nuns. When Hollywood makes movies about them they pick the Deborah Kerrs and Julie Andrews, but Sister Ursula wasn't like that. She had a full jaw, her eyebrows were thick black bars which gave her a severe and daunting look, and her face was too thin, as though she didn't eat enough. But when she smiled she was transformed, lovely to look at. We found out that she didn't use that radiant smile very often; and with reason, just at that time.

I said, 'Someone get a glass, please.'

'From the bottle is good enough,' she said, and took it from me. She swallowed and coughed a couple of times, and handed it back to me. The men watched transfixed, though whether this was the effect of the nun or the bottle I wasn't sure.

'Ah. It tastes as good as it did last time - some six years ago.'

'Have some more.'

'No, thank you. I need no more.'

Several voices broke in with questions but I overrode them. 'Pipe down, you guys, and quit crowding.' Obediently they shuffled back a pace. I bent over Sister Ursula and spoke more quietly. 'You look pretty beat; do you want to sleep somewhere?'

'Oh no, but I would dearly like a chance to clean up.' She put her stained hands to her face and then brushed at her skirts. Although she was a nun, she was vain enough to care about her appearance.

I said, 'Sandy, see there's some hot water. Ben, can the lads rig a canvas between the trucks to make a bathroom? Perhaps you'll join us for a meal when you're ready, Sister.' Young Bing sped off and Hammond set the men to putting up a makeshift tent for her. McGrath was helping her to her feet and hovering like a mother hen; presumably as a Catholic he regarded her in some especially proprietorial light. Eventually she thanked us all and disappeared into the tent with a bowlful of water and a spare kettle and someone's shaving mirror.

Kemp had been with Wingstead and Otterman and had arrived a little late for all this excitement. I filled him in and he regarded the tent thoughtfully.

'I wonder where the others are?' he said.

'Others?'

There'll be at least one more. Nuns are like coppers - they go around in pairs. Most likely there's a whole brood of them somewhere. With any luck they're a nursing sisterhood.'

I was being pretty slow, perhaps simply tired out, but at last the penny dropped. 'You mean they'll come from a hospital or a mission? By God, perhaps you're right. That means they may have a doctor!'

She came out half an hour later, looking well-scrubbed and much tidier. We were ready to eat and I asked her if she wished to join us, or to eat on her own. Someone must-have lent her a sewing kit for the rip in her habit had been neatly mended.

'I'll join you, if I might. You're very kind. And you'll all be wanting to hear what I have to say,' she said rather dryly.

I noticed that she said a short, private grace before actually coming to the table, and appreciated her courtesy: doing it publicly might well have embarrassed some of the men. She sat between Kemp and me and I quickly filled her in on our names and business, of which she said she had heard a little on the radio, in the far-off days of last week before the war broke out. We didn't bother her while she was eating but as soon as was decent I asked the first question. It was a pretty all-embracing one.

'What happened?'

'It was an air raid,' she said. 'Surely you know.'

'We weren't here. We were still further south. But we guessed.'

'It was about midday. There had been some unrest, lots of rumours, but that isn't uncommon. Then we heard that there were tanks and soldiers coming through the town, so Doctor Katabisirua suggested that someone should go and see what was happening.'

'Who is he?' Kemp asked.

'Our chief at the hospital.' There was an indrawing of breath at the table as we hung on her words. Kemp shot me a look almost of triumph.

'Sister Mary sent me. It wasn't very far, only a short drive into town. When I got there I saw a lot of tanks moving through the town, far too quickly, I thought. They were heading north, towards Ngingwe.'

Ngingwe was the first village north of Kodowa, which showed that Sadiq had probably been right when he said that Hussein's lot would go northwards to join forces with his superior.

'They got through the town but some soldiers stayed back to keep the road clear. We heard that there were more tanks still coming from the south of the town.' Those would be the tanks that we had seen shot up. There were still a lot of people in the town square when the planes came. They came in very' fast, very low. Nobody was scared at first. We've seen them often, coming and going from the Air Force base out there.' She pointed vaguely westward.

'How many planes, Sister?' Kemp asked.

'I saw seven. There may have been more. Then things happened very quickly. There was a lot of noise - shooting and explosions. Then the sound of bombs exploding, and fires started everywhere. It was so sudden, you see. I took shelter in Mister Ithanga's shop but then it started to fall to pieces and something must have hit me on the head.'

In fact she had no head wound, and I think she was felled by the concussion blast of a missile. She couldn't have been unconscious long because when I saw the shop next day it was a fire-gutted wreck. She said that she found herself coming to in the street, but didn't know how she got there. She said very little about her own part in the affair after that, but we gathered that eventually she got back to the hospital with a load of patients, her little car having escaped major damage, to find it already besieged by wailing, bleeding victims.

But they were not able to do much to help. With a very small staff, some of whom were local and only semi-trained, and limited supplies of bedding, food and medicines they were soon out of their depth and struggling. Adding to their problems were two major disasters: their water supply and their power had both failed. They got their water from a well which ran sweet and plentiful normally, but was itself connected to other local wells, and somewhere along the line pipes must have cracked, because suddenly the well ran dry except for buckets of sludgy muck. And horrifyingly, shortly after the town's own electricity failed, the hospital's little emergency generator also died. Without it they had no supply of hot water, no cooking facilities bar a small backup camping gas arrangement, and worst of all, no refrigeration or facilities for sterilizing. In short, they were thrown back upon only the most basic and primitive forms of medication, amounting to little more than practical first aid. , It was late afternoon and they were already floundering when the hospital was visited by Captain Sadiq. He spent quite a time in discussion with the doctor and Sisters Mary and Ursula, the leading nuns of the small colony, and it was finally decided that one of them should come back with him to the convoy, to speak to us and find out if our technical skills could be of any use. Sister Ursula came as the doctor couldn't be spared and Sister Mary was elderly.

Kemp asked why Captain Sadiq hadn't personally escorted her to the camp and seen her safe. He was fairly indignant and so was I at this dereliction.

'Ah, he's so busy, that man. I told him to drop me at the military camp and I walked over. There's nothing wrong with me now, and walking's no new thing to us, you know.'

'It could have been damned dangerous.'

'I didn't think so. There were a score of people wishing to speak to the Captain, and no vehicles to spare. And here I am, safe enough.'

'That you are, Sister. You'll stay here tonight? I'm sure you could do with a night's sleep. In the morning we'll take you back to the hospital, and see what we can do to help.'

Kemp had changed quite a lot in a short time. While not inhumane, I'm fairly sure that as little as three days ago he would not have been quite so ready to ditch his transportation job at the drop of a hat to go to the rescue of a local mission hospital. But the oncome of the war, the sight of the burnt out town with its hapless population, and perhaps most of all the injury to one of his own, our pilot, had altered his narrow outlook.

Now he added, 'One of our men is badly hurt, Sister. He was in a plane crash and he needs help. Would you look at him tonight?'

'Of course,' she said with ready concern.

Ben Hammond had left the table, and now came back to join us with a stack of six-packs of beer in his arms.

'We've relaxed the rationing for tonight,' he said. 'Everybody deserves it. Sister, you wouldn't take a second shot of whisky, but maybe you'll settle for this instead?' He handed her a can from the pack.

She tightened her fist around the can.

'Why, it's ice cold!'

Hammond smiled. 'It just came out of the fridge.'

'You have a refrigerator? But that's marvellous. We can preserve our drugs then, praise be to God!'

Kemp and Hammond exchanged the briefest of glances, but I could guess what they were thinking. There was no way that refrigerator could be left at the hospital, urgent though its need might be; it was run by the generator that was solidly attached to the rig, and without which nothing could function.

Things looked better the next morning, but not much. No smoke wreathed up from the distant town but I suspected that this was because there was nothing left there to burn. We were greatly cheered when Sam Wilson told us that he had located a source of clean water, a well at a nearby village which hadn't been affected by the bombing, arid which seemed to have a healthy supply. He intended to fill the water tanker and top up drinking containers. When he learned about the water shortage at the hospital he said that there should be enough for them too, assuming they had some sort of tank in which to store it. Geoff Wingstead joined us for breakfast and met Sister Ursula for the first time. She had been to see Otterman but wanted him taken to the hospital for the doctor to see, and now looked professionally at Wingstead's gash and bruises and approved of what had been done for them. Wingstead insisted that he was now perfectly well and was eager to see the town and the hospital for himself. In spite of his heavy financial commitment, he seemed far less anxious about the rig and Wyvern Transport's future than Kemp did. Perhaps it was just that he was younger and more adventurous.

I drove back to the town in the Land Rover with Kemp, Wingstead, Sister Ursula, and Hammond. Sadiq came over just before we left and said that he would see us at the hospital a little later. He looked drawn and harassed. The lack of communication from his superiors and the consequent responsibility was taking its toll, but even so he was bearing up pretty well. Kemp and I still had a nagging doubt as to his loyalty, but we'd seen nothing to prove the case one way or the other, except that he was still with us, which probably counted for something. As for the shooting down of our plane, nothing whatever had been said about it and I was content to let the question lie.

The fires had burnt themselves out and the heavy pall of smoke of yesterday was replaced by a light haze fed by ash and still smouldering embers. Kodowa had nothing left worth destroying. A few isolated buildings still stood, but most of the centre was gone, and it was by no means sure that when we cleared the rubble we would find an intact road surface beneath it.

People wandered about still, but very few of them. Many had simply melted back into the bush, others had gone to cluster round the hospital or the army encampment, and we'd seen pathetic faces hovering near our own camp during the early hours of the morning. We didn't spend much time in the town, but asked Sister Ursula to direct us to the hospital which stood slightly apart and to the east. The road getting there was not in good condition.

The hospital looked exactly like the casualty station it had become. We threaded our way through the knots of Nyalans who were already setting up their makeshift homes in the grounds, avoiding the little cooking fires and the livestock which wandered about underfoot, and the small naked children. People stared at us but there was none of the crowding round that usually happened in the villages in happier times. Sister Ursula, though, was accosted and hailed by name as we left the car and made our way indoors.

We met Sister Mary, who was elderly and frail, and two younger nuns, all fully occupied. I noticed that none of them seemed surprised to see Sister Ursula back with a team of British men, or even particularly relieved at her safe return from what might have been regarded as a dangerous mission; the impression I got was that they all had the most sublime faith in her ability to take care of herself, and to turn up trumps in any eventuality. I could see their point of view.

She led us into an office, asked us to wait and vanished, to return very soon with the surgeon in tow.

Kemp said, 'We're very pleased to meet you, Doctor -'

He was a tall, saturnine Nyalan with a strong Asian streak, grey-haired and authoritative. He wore tropical whites which were smudged and blood-streaked. He put out a hand and took Kemp's, and smiled a mouthful of very white teeth at all of us.

'Katabisirua. But here everyone calls me Doctor Kat. It is a pleasure to have you here, especially at this moment.'

'Doctor - Doctor Kat, I'm Basil Kemp of Wyvern Transport. You probably know what we're doing here in Nyala. This is my partner, Mister Wingstead. Mister Hammond, our chief mechanic. Mister Mannix is from our associated company, British Electric.' He ran through the introductions and there were handshakes all round, very formal. Ben hid a smile at the man's nickname.

'Gentlemen, I can offer you little hospitality. Please forgive me.'

Wingstead brushed this aside.

'Of course you can't, and we don't expect it. There's work to be done here. Let me say that I think we have got your water problem sorted out, thanks to some of my lads, provided you've got tanks or somewhere to store the stuff.'

Dr Kat's eyes lit up. Thank God. Water is a pressing need. We have a storage tank which is almost empty; I have been trying to take nothing from it until we knew about replacement, but naturally everyone is in need of it.'

'We'll get the tanker up here as soon as we can. We expect Captain Sadiq to join us soon; he's the officer of the military detachment here. When he comes, I'll get him to send a message to our camp,' Wingstead said. He and Dr Kat were on the same wavelength almost immediately, both men of decision and determination. Basil Kemp's tendency to surrender to irritation and his stubborn inability to keep his plans flexible would be easily overridden by these two.

'Now, what about the electricity? We cannot make our generator work. We have bottled gas, but not much. What can you do to help us there?' Dr Kat asked. He had another attribute, the calm assurance that every other man was willing to put himself and his possessions completely at the service of the hospital at any time. Without that self-confidence no man would have been capable of even beginning to run such a project, for the obstacles Katabisirua must have had to overcome in his time would have been enormous.

'Hammond and I are going to have a look at your generator. We've some experience at that sort of thing. I can't make any promises but we'll do our best,' Wingstead said.

Sister Ursula interrupted. 'What about your refrigerator?' she asked.

Dr Kat's head came up alertly. 'What refrigerator?'

Wingstead hadn't known about last evening's conversation and Kemp, for whatever motives I didn't quite like to think about, hadn't referred to it. Sister Ursula said firmly, 'Doctor Kat, they have a working fridge on their transporter. We should send all the drugs that must be kept cold and as much food as possible down there immediately. We can save a lot of it.'

His face beamed. 'But that's wonderful!'

Sister Ursula went on inexorably, 'And also they have electricity. Lights, cooking, even a deepfreeze. I saw all this last night. Isn't that so, gentlemen?'

'Of course we have,' Wingstead concurred. 'We're going to do what we can to use our power supply to restart yours. We'll have to get the rig up here, though, and that isn't going to be at all easy.'

Kemp looked troubled. 'I've been studying the road up here. What with the refugees and the condition of the road itself, I'd say it's going to be damn near impossible, Geoff.'

The nun interrupted, her jaw set at its firmest. 'But all we want is your generator. We don't need that huge thing of yours. We could do with your deepfreeze too; and with the generator our own refrigerator will run. You gentlemen can manage without cold beer, but we need that facility of yours.'

The Wyvern team exchanged looks of despair.

'Ma'am, Doctor Kat, that just isn't possible,' Hammond said at last.

'Why not, please?' The surgeon asked.

Sister Ursula showed that she'd picked up a bit of politics during her evening at our camp. 'Mister Mannix,' she said, 'you represent a very wealthy company. Please explain to your colleagues that it is imperative that we have this facility! I am sure your board of executives will approve. It is of the highest importance.'

I was dumbfounded and showed it. 'Sister, that fust isn't the problem. British Electric would give you anything you asked for, but they're not here. And the reason you can't have the generator isn't economic, it's technical. Explain, someone.'

Hammond took up a pad of paper lying on the desk, and his pen began to fly over the paper as he sketched rapidly.

'Look here, ma'am. You too, Doctor.'

They bent over the sheet of paper and I peered over Ben's shoulder. He had produced a lightning and very competent sketch of the entire rig. He pointed to various parts as he spoke, and it must have been obvious to his whole audience that he was speaking the truth.

'Here's the generator. To drive it you have to have an engine, and that's here. The actual generator is really a part of the engine, not a separate section. If you looked at it, just here, you'd see that the engine casting and the generator casting are one and the same; it's an integral unit.'

'Then we must have the engine too,' said Sister Ursula practically.

Kemp choked.

Hammond shook his head. 'Sorry. The engine has much more to do than just drive this generator. Sure, it provided the electricity to power the fridge and freezer, and light the camp at night and stuff like that, but that's just a bonus.'

He pointed to the illustration of the transformer.

This big lump on its trailer is now resting on the ground, practically. Before we can move off we have to lift three hundred and thirty tons - that's the load plus the platform it's resting on - through a vertical distance of three feet. It's done hydraulically and it needs a whole lot of power, which comes from the engine. And when we're moving we must have power for the brakes which are also hydraulically operated. Without this engine we're immobile.'

Then you must - '

Hammond anticipated the nun's next demand.

'We can't ditch our load. It took a couple of pretty hefty cranes to get it in place, and it'd need the same to shift it off its base. Some flat-bed trucks have the mobility to tip sideways, but this one hasn't, so we can't spill it off. And any attempt to do so will probably wreck the entire works.'

It was stalemate. Kemp tried to hide his sigh of relief.

Into the disappointed silence Wingstead spoke. 'Don't be too downhearted. We can refrigerate your drugs and a lot of your food too, if you think it's safe to do so, at least while we're here. And we can probably get the whole rig up here so that we can couple up with your lighting and sterilizing units.

Sister Ursula did look thoroughly downcast.

Katabisirua said gently, 'Never mind, Sister. It was a good idea, but we will have others.'

'But they're going to be moving along. Then what can we do?'

Wingstead said, 'We won't be moving anywhere for a bit, not until we know a little more about the general situation and have a decent plan of action. Let's take this one step at a time, shall we? I think we should go back to our camp now. Would you like to make a pack of all your drugs that need to go into the refrigerator, Sister? We'll take them with us. If you need any in the meantime we can arrange for the Captain to put a motorcyclist at your disposal. What do you suggest we do for our wounded pilot?'

'I will come with you. I think I should see him. They must spare me here for a little while,' the Doctor said. After a quick conference, Sister Ursula went off to supervise the packing of drugs and other items that could do with refrigeration, while Dr Kat collected the ubiquitous little black bag and said that he was ready to go.

We found a soldier standing guard over the Land Rover, and parked nearby was Sadiq's staff car. The Captain was speaking to a knot of Nyalan men, presumably the elders of Kodowa, but left them to join us.

'Good morning, sir. You are better now?' This was addressed to Wingstead, who nodded cheerfully.

'I would like to know what your plans are, sir. There is much to do here, but do you intend to continue upcountry?' Sadiq asked.

'We're not going immediately,' Wingstead said. I noticed how easily he took over command from Kemp, and how easily Kemp allowed him to do so. Kemp was entirely content to walk in his senior partner's shadow on all matters except, perhaps, for the actual handling of the rig itself. I wasn't sorry. Geoff Wingstead could make decisions and was flexible enough to see alternative possibilities as he went along. He was a man after my own heart.

Now he went on, 'I'd like to discuss plans with you, Captain, but we have to sort ourselves out first. We are going to try and help the doctor here, but first we're going back to camp. Can you join me there in a couple of hours, please?'

At this moment Sadiq's sergeant called him over to the staff car, holding out earphones. Sadiq listened and then turned dials around until a thin voice, overlaid with static, floated out to us as we crowded round the car. 'Radio Nyala is on the air,' Sadiq said.

It was a news broadcast apparently, in Nyalan, which after a while changed into English. The voice was flat and careful and the words showed signs that they had come under the heavy hand of government censorship. Apparently 'dissident elements' of the Army and Air Force had rioted in barracks but by a firm show of force the Government had checked the rebels. The ringleaders were shortly to stand trial in a military court. There was no need for civil unease. No names or places were given. There was no mention of Kodowa. And there was no other news. The voice disappeared into a mush of palm court music.

I smiled sourly as I listened to this farrago. Next week, if the Government survived, the 'dissident elements' would be plainly labelled as traitors. The news broadcasts would never refer to a state of war, nor give more than the most shadowy version of the truth. Of course, all that depended on whether the broadcast station remained in government hands. If the rebels took it there would be an entirely different version of the 'truth'.

None of us made much comment on what we'd heard, all recognizing it for the fallacy that it was. We piled into the Land Rover with Dr Kat and drove back in silence to the convoy camp.

CHAPTER 11

Three hours later after a short discussion with Wingstead I gathered the people I wanted for a conference. But I had decided that this wasn't going to be a committee meeting; I wasn't going to put up my proposals to be voted on. This was to be an exchange of ideas and information, but the only person who was going to have the final say was me.

I had found McGrath shaving in front of his tractor. 'Mick, you've just got your old rank back.' He looked a bit blank while the lather on his chin dried in the hot sun. 'You're back to sergeant. We might be going through a tough time in the next few days, and I want someone to keep the crew whipped in line. Think you can do it?'

He gave a slow grin. 'I can do it.'

'Hurry up with your shaving. I want you to sit in on a conference.'

So we had McGrath, Hammond, Kemp, Wingstead, Captain Sadiq and me. Katabisirua had been joined at our camp by Sister Ursula and they were included as a matter of courtesy; any decisions would affect them and in any case I didn't think I had the power to keep them out. I had already realized they made a strong team: just how strong I was shortly to find out.

Firstly I outlined the geographical position, and gave them my reasons for changing our direction. Instead of going on up to the arid fastness of Bir Oassa we would turn at right angles and take the secondary road to the Manzu border at Lake Pirie on the Katali River. Here we had two options whereas at Bir Oassa we had only one, or slightly less than one; we could turn back along the coast road to Lasulu and the capital if the country had by then settled its internal quarrel and things were judged safe, or we could get the men at least across the Katali into Manzu and diplomatic immunity.

Wingstead had already heard all this from me and was resigned to the possibility of losing his rig and convoy, and of not being able to fulfil the terms of his contract with the Nyalan Government. He did not contest my arguments. I had already spoken to Kemp, and Hammond had heard it all from him. Kemp was still obviously fretting but Hammond's faith in Wingstead was all-encompassing. If his boss said it was OK, he had no objections. I asked McGrath what he thought the men's reactions might be.

'We haven't got much choice, the way I see it. You're the boss. They'll see it your way.' He implied that they'd better, which suited me very well.

Sadiq was torn between a sense of duty and a sense of relief. To take the long hard road up to the desert, with all its attendant dangers, and without any knowledge of who or what he'd find waiting there, was less attractive than returning to a known base, in spite of the unknown factors waiting in that direction as well. But there was one problem he didn't have that we did; any decision concerning the moving of the rig.

We discussed, briefly, the possible state of the road back. It was all guesswork which Kemp loathed, but at least we knew the terrain, and there was a bonus of the fact that it was principally downhill work, redescending the plateau into the rainforest once more. We would not run short of water; there were far more people and therefore more chance of food and even of fuel. And we wouldn't be as exposed as we would be if we continued on through the scrublands. I hadn't discounted the likelihood of aerial attack.

Hammond and Kemp, with an escort of soldiers, were to scout ahead to check out the road while McGrath and Bert Proctor began to organize the convoy for its next stage forward, or rather backward. Wingstead asked McGrath to call a meeting of the crew, so that he could tell them the exact score before we got down to the business of logistics. Everything was falling nicely into place, including my contingency plans to help the hospital as much as possible before we pulled out.

Everything didn't include the inevitable X factor. And the X factor was sitting right there with us.

The moment of change came when I turned to Dr Katabisirua and said to him, 'Doctor Kat, those drugs of yours that we have in refrigeration for you; how vital are they?'

He tented his fingers. 'In the deepfreeze we have serum samples and control sera; also blood clotting agents for our few haemophiliac patients. In the fridge there is whole blood, plasma, blood sugars, insulin and a few other things. Not really a great deal as we try not to be dependent on refrigeration. It has been of more use in saving some of our food, though that is being used up fast.'

I was relieved to hear this; they could manage without refrigeration if they had to. After all, most tropical mission hospitals in poor countries work in a relative degree of primitiveness.

'We'll keep your stuff on ice as long as possible,' I said. 'And we're going to have a go at repairing your generator. We'll do all we can before leaving.'

Dr Kat and Sister Ursula exchanged the briefest of glances, which I interpreted, wrongly, as one of resignation.

'Captain Sadiq,' the Doctor said, 'Do you have any idea at all as to whether there will be a measure of governmental control soon?'

Sadiq spread his hands. 'I am sorry, no,' he said. 'I do not know who is the Government. I would do my best for all civilians, but I have been told to stay with Mister Mannix and protect his convoy particularly, you see. It is very difficult to make guesses.'

They spoke in English, I think in deference to us.

'The people of Kodowa will scatter among the smaller villages soon,' Kat said. 'The area is well populated, which is why they needed a hospital. Many of them have already gone.

But that solution does not apply to my patients.'

'Why not?' Kemp asked.

'Because we do not have the staff to scatter around with them, to visit the sick in their homes or the homes of friends. Many are too sick to trust to local treatment. We have many more patients now because of the air raid.'

'How many?'

'About fifty bed patients, if we had the beds to put them in, and a hundred or more ambulatory patients. In this context they could be called the "walking wounded",' he added acidly.

'So it is only a matter of extra shelter you need,' said Sadiq. I knew he was partly wrong, but waited to hear the Doctor put it into words.

'It is much more than that, Captain. We need shelter, yes, but that is not the main problem. We need medical supplies but we can manage for a while on what we have. But our patients need nursing, food and water.'

'There will be dysentery here soon,' put in Sister Ursula. 'There is already sepsis, and a lack of hygiene, more than we usually suffer.'

'They also are vulnerable to the depredations of marauding bands of rebels,' said Dr Kat, a sentence I felt like cheering for its sheer pomposity. But he was right for all that.

'As are we all, including the younger nurses,' added the Sister. It began to sound like a rather well-rehearsed chorus and Wingstead and I exchanged a glance of slowly dawning comprehension.

'Am I not correct, Mister Mannix, in saying that you consider it the safest and most prudent course for your men to leave Kodowa, to try and get away to a place of safety?'

'You heard me say so, Doctor.'

'Then it follows that it must also be the correct course for my patients.'

For a long moment no-one said anything, and then I broke the silence. 'Just how do you propose doing that?'

Katabisirua took a deep breath. This was the moment he had been building up to. 'Let me see if I have everything right that I have learned from you. Mister Hammond, you say that the large object you carry on your great vehicle weighs over three hundred tons, yes?'

That's about it.'

'Could you carry another seven tons?'

'No trouble at all,' said Hammond.

'Seven tons is about the weight of a hundred people,' said Katabisirua blandly.

Or one more elephant, I thought with a manic inward chuckle. The silence lengthened as we all examined this bizarre proposition. It was broken by the Doctor, speaking gently and reasonably, 'I am not suggesting that you take us all the way to the coast, of course. There is another good, if small, hospital at Kanja on the north road, just at the top of the next escarpment. It has no airfield and is not itself important, so I do not think it will have been troubled by the war. They could take care of us all.'

I doubted that and didn't for a moment think that Dr Kat believed it either, but I had to hand it to him; he was plausible and a damned good psychologist. Not only did his proposition sound well within the bounds of reason and capability, but I could tell from the rapt faces around me that the sheer glamour of what he was suggesting was beginning to put a spell on them. It was a Pied Piper sort of situation, stuffed with pathos and heroism, and would go far to turn the ignominious retreat into some sort of whacky triumph. The Dunkirk spirit, I thought -the great British knack of taking defeat and making it look like victory.

There was just one little problem. Kanja, it appeared, was on the very road that we had already decided to abandon, heading north into the desert and towards the oilfields at Bir Oassa. I was about to say as much when to my astonishment Wingstead cut in with a question which implied that his thinking was not going along with mine at all.

He said, 'How far to Kanja?'

'About fifty miles. The road is quite good. I have often driven there,' the Doctor said.

Hammond spoke up. 'Excuse me, Doctor. Is it level or uphill?'

'I would say it is fairly flat. There are no steep hills.'

McGrath said, 'We could rig awnings over the bogies to keep off the sun.'

Hammond asked, his mind seething with practicalities, 'Fifty odd patients, and a staff of - ?'

'Say ten,' said Sister Ursula.

'What about all the rest, then?'

'They would walk. They are very hardy and used to that, and even those who are wounded will manage. There are a few hospital cars but we have no spare petrol. I believe you do not go very fast, gentlemen.'

'We could take some up on top of the trucks. And we've got your car, Mister Mannix, and Mister Kemp's Land Rover, and perhaps the military could give up some space,' Hammond said.

'And the tractors?' the Sister asked.

'No, ma'am. They're packed inside with steel plates set in cement, and the airlift truck is full of machinery and equipment we might need. But there's room on top of all of them. Awnings would be no problem?'

McGrath said, 'There'd be room for a couple of the nippers in each cab, like as not.'

'Nippers?' the doctor asked.

'The children,' McGrath said.

I looked from face to face. On only one of them, and that predictably was Basil Kemp's, did I see a trace of doubt or irritation. Minds were taking fire as we talked. Geographical niceties were either being entirely overlooked or deliberately avoided, and somehow I couldn't bring myself to dash cold water on their blazing enthusiasm. But this was madness itself.

Dr Kat regarded the backs of his hands and flexed his fingers thoughtfully. 'I may have to operate while we are travelling. Would there be room for that?'

'Room, yes, but it would be too bumpy, Doctor. You'd have to work whenever we were stopped,' said Hammond. He had a notebook out and was already making sketches.

Sadiq spoke. 'I think my men can walk.and the wounded will ride. They are our people and we must take care of them.' He squared his shoulders as he spoke and I saw the lifting of a great burden from his soul; he had been given a job to do, something real and necessary no matter which side was winning the mysterious war out there. It called for simple logistics, basic planning, clear orders, and he was capable of all that. And above all, it called for no change in the route once planned for him and us by his masters. It was perfect for him. It solved all his problems in one stroke.

Sister Ursula stood up.

'Have you a measuring tape, Mister Hammond?'

'Yes, ma'am. What do you want it for?' he asked.

'I want to measure your transport. I must plan for beds.'

'I'll come with you,' he said. Tell me what you want.'

McGrath lumbered to his feet. 'I'll go round up the lads, Mister Wingstead,' he said. 'You'll be wanting to talk to them yourself.' The Doctor too rose, dusting himself off fastidiously. He made a small half-bow to Geoff Wingstead. 'I have to thank you, sir,' he said formally. 'This is a very fine thing that you do. I will go back now, please. I have many arrangements to make.'

Sadiq said, 'I will take the Doctor and then prepare my own orders. I will come back to advise you, Mister Mannix. We should not delay, I think.'

Around us the conference melted away, each member intent on his or her own affairs. Astonishingly, nobody had waited to discuss this new turn of events or even to hear from the so-called bosses as to whether it was even going to happen. In a matter of moments Kemp, Wingstead and I were left alone. For once I felt powerless.

Kemp shrugged his shoulders. 'It's all quite mad,' he said. 'We can't possibly get involved in this - this -'

'Stunt?' Wingstead asked gently. 'Basil, we are involved. I've never seen a piece of manipulation more skilfully done. Those two have run rings round the lot of us, and there isn't any way that we could put a stop to this business. And what's more,' he went on, overriding Kemp's protests, 'I don't think I'd want to stop it. It is crazy, but it sounds feasible and it's humanely necessary. And it's going to put a lot of heart into our lads. None of them likes what's happened, they feel frustrated, cheated and impotent.'

I finally got a word in. 'Geoff, we'd already decided that we shouldn't carry on northwards. This would be a very fine thing to do, but - '

'You too, Neil? Surely you're not going to fight me on this. I think it's damned important. Look, it's fifty miles. Two, maybe three days extra, getting there and back here to Kodowa. Then we're on our own again. And there's something else. The news that we must turn back is one they were going to take damned hard. This way they'll at least have the feeling that they've done something worthwhile.'

He stretched his arms and yawned, testing the stiffness in his side.

'And so will I. So let's get to it.'

Down near the commissariat truck McGrath had called all hands together. Wingstead and I went to meet them. On the way I stopped and called Bishop over to give him an instruction that brought first a frown and then a grin to his face. He in turn summoned Bing and they vanished. 'What did you tell him?' Wingstead asked.

'Bit of psychology. You'll see. Don't start till he's back, will you?'

Bishop and Bing returned a few moments later, lugging a couple of cardboard boxes. To the assembled men I said, 'Here you go, guys. A can apiece. Send them around, cookie.'

Bishop began handing out six-packs of beer. 'Management too,' I reminded him. 'And that includes the Doctor and Sister Ursula.' There was a buzz of conversation as the packs went out, and then I held up a hand in silence.

'Everybody happy?'

Laughter rippled. Cans were already being opened, and Barry Lang paused with his halfway to his mouth. 'What are we celebrating, chief? The end of the war?'

'Not quite. We're celebrating the fact that this is the last cold beer we're all going to get for a while.' At this there was a murmur of confusion. I held up an open can. 'Some of you may know this already. We're using the fridge to store the hospital's drugs and as much food as possible for the patients, especially the kids. From now on, it'll be warm beer and canned food for the lot of us. My heart bleeds for you.'

This brought another laugh. Grafton said, 'We're staying here, then?'

This was Wingstead's moment, and he jumped lightly onto the top of the cab. He had recovered well from his shake-up in the air crash, unlike Max Otterman, who still lay unconscious in the shade of the water tanker and was a constant source of worry to all of us.

Wingstead said, 'No, we're not staying here. We're moving out, maybe today, more likely tomorrow. But we're not going much further north.'

Into an attentive silence which I judged to be not hostile he outlined the geographical picture, the political scene such as we knew it, and the reasons for abandoning the contract. The crew accepted everything without argument, though there was a lot of muted discussion, and I was impressed again by Wing-stead's air of command and his control over his team. I'd had my eye on Sisley and Lang as being the two most likely hard liners, but there was no opposition even from them. The argument in favour of saving their own skins was a strong one, and unlike Wyvern's management they had no direct stake in the outcome of the job.

Wingstead went on to the second half of the story, and now their astonishment was obvious. There was a burst of talking and signs of excitement and enthusiasm beginning to creep into their voices. It was almost like giving a bunch of kids a dazzling new game to play with.

'So there it is, chaps. We move out as soon as we can, and we're taking a whole lot of sick and injured people and all the hospital staff with us, and everybody who can walk will be tailing along for their daily bandage changes. We're going to pack the badly injured onto the rig and carry as many of the rest as we can on the trucks. We're going to need every ounce of your energy and good will. Are we agreed?'

There was a ready chorus of assent. Wingstead went on, 'Any bright ideas you may have, pass them along to Mick or Mister Hammond or me. Any medical questions direct to the Sister.' I smiled briefly at the division between those who were 'Mister' and those who were not, even in these fraught moments; another example of the gulf between their country and mine.

'When we've seen them safe at the hospital in Kanja, we'll turn round and set off towards the Katali. We reckon on only two extra days for the mission. Thank you, chaps.'

Mick McGrath rose and bellowed.

'Right, lads! Five minutes to finish your beer and then let's be at it. There's plenty to be done.'

As Wingstead and I walked off, well pleased with the way our bombshell of news had gone down, Sister Ursula waylaid us, having, no doubt got all she wanted from Ben Hammond.

'Mister Mannix, I want transport back to the hospital, please.'

'No you don't,' I said. 'You're wanted here. The crew is going to be pestering you with questions and ideas, and Geoff and I have got quite a few of our own.'

'I'll be needed at the hospital.'

'I'm sure you will. But Sister Mary is there with the others and you're the only one here. And the rate your Doctor Kat works, there'll probably be a first load of patients arriving within the hour. The lads will work under your direction, yours and Ben's that is. They've got awnings to rig up, bedding to get cut, all sorts of stuff. And you have to choose a spot for your operating theatre.'

'I've done that already.' But she wasn't stubborn when faced with plain good sense, and agreed readily enough to stay and get on with her end of the job, for which I was grateful. If it came to the crunch I didn't think I would ever win out against her.

We all worked hard and the rig was transformed. Sadiq's men rounded up some of the local women who knew how to thatch with palm leaf fronds and set them to work, silently at first and then as the strangeness and the fear began to wear off, singing in ululating chorus. As it took shape the rig began to look pretty strange wearing a selection of thatched umbrellas. I was amused to think what Kemp would have to say: he had gone off to check the road leading northwards out of town.

Awnings were being made for the tops of each of the trucks as well, and reeds from the river were beginning to pile up to make bedding for each of the patients as we found places for them. All four tractors were similarly bedecked. Even the tank McGrath had salvaged was to carry its share of patients, perched in the turret. The gun had been ditched once it was clear that there was no ammunition for it. I doubt if you could see anything in the world more incongruous than a thatched tank.

Sadiq had unearthed a couple of old trucks which Ben Hammond pronounced as serviceable and we thatched one of those. The other already had a canvas awning. There were few other vehicles in Kodowa that had escaped either the strafing or the fires.

There was moderately good news about fuel. Outside the town we found a full 4000-gallon tanker. It must have been abandoned by its driver at the onset of the air attack. Both it and our own tanker escaped thatching because I jibbed at carrying bedridden patients on top of potential bombs. The water tanker wasn't thatched either, being the wrong shape for carrying people.

Sister Ursula was endlessly busy. She supervised the cutting of bedding, to make sure that none was wet and that the worst of the insect life was shaken out of it, checked through our food supplies and made a complete inventory, rounded up towels and sheets from everybody, and selected a place on the rig for Dr Kat's mobile surgery, the top of the foremost tractor cab, as being the only really flat surface and the one least likely to get smothered in the dust we would stir up in our progress. It was, she pointed out, very exposed but in our supplies we had a couple of pup tents and one of these, after some tailoring, made a fairly passable enclosed space. The other formed a screen for the patients' toilet, a galvanized iron bucket.

It was all quite astonishing.

The Sister then proceeded to go through the camp like a one-woman locust swarm, sweeping up everything she thought might be of any use. Every pair of scissors she could find she confiscated; she almost denuded the commissary wagon of knives; and she kept young Bing on the run, setting him to boil water to sterilize the things she found.

Once done, they were wrapped in sheets of polythene. Everything as sterile as she could make it. And then they were stored in a corner of our freezer, to slow down bacterial activity. She confiscated packets of paperclips and went through Kemp's Land Rover, removing clips from every piece of paper in sight, garnering sticky tape, elastic bands and string. Our several first aid boxes all went into her hoard.

Military trucks began arriving from the hospital carrying, not people yet, but goods; food, medications, bandaging, implements, dishes and hardware of all sorts. Among other things was a contraption on a trolley that Sister Ursula dismissed with annoyance.

'That thing doesn't work. Hasn't for a long time. It's a waste of space.'

'What is it, Sister?' It was Ben Hammond who asked, and who seemed to be in constant attendance, not in Mick McGrath's proprietorial fashion but as head gofer to a factory foreman. Her demands fascinated and challenged him.

'It is, or was, a portable anaesthetic machine.'

'If it were fixed, would it be of use?' She nodded and he fixed it. He was a damned good mechanic.

The Sister found a place for Max Otterman and he was gently lifted onto his pile of bedding; Wyvern Transport Hospital's first inmate. He'd been showing some signs of recovering consciousness in the past few hours but the portents were not good; he looked and sounded awful.

I kept busy and tried not to think about him, putting him in the same mental folder in which lurked other worries: the state of the nation, the progress of war, the possibility of aircraft bombing us as we sat helpless. Our fuel or water might run out, there could be sickness or mechanical breakdowns. There was no communication with the world apart from the unreliable and sporadic messages received on the Captain's radio. I kept going, knowing that when I stopped the problems would close in.

It was a long, complex and exhausting day. There was little talking as evening fell and we ate thoughtfully and turned in. I lay fighting off despair, and even coined a phrase for it: Mannix' Depression. But I couldn't raise a laugh at my own joke. The odds against us seemed to be stacked far too high.

CHAPTER 12

There was another change of plan that afternoon. We were to move the rig to the hospital rather than risk moving the patients before it was necessary. At daybreak we got going, the oddly transformed convoy passing slowly through the town that wasn't a town any more, to Katabisirua's headquarters beyond. The command car bumped over rubble as we passed the remains of the shattered tanks which we had laboured to shift and crunched through cinders and debris in what had been the main street of Kodowa. The place still stank of death and burning.

We passed a truncated and blackened telegraph pole from which a body dangled. Sadiq said laconically, 'A looter, sir.'

'Have you had many?'

'A few. He was one of the first. He discourages the others, as they say.'

Every now and then Sadiq's obviously broader than average education showed through. For a locally trained lower echelon officer of a somewhat backward country he was surprisingly well-read in military matters. It seemed a pity that he had been given so little room to do his own thinking, but was still tied by the bonds of discipline.

I saw a sign on a blackened but still standing shop front and a soldier who stood in front of the door, cradling a gun. 'Will you stop a minute, Captain? May I go in there?'

'It is off limits, Mister Mannix.' Again the flash of an unexpected phrase.

'Yes, and we both know why.'

I got out of the car without waiting for any more objections and gestured to the soldier to let me by. Sadiq entered the ruined premises behind me. I picked my way through a jumble of fallen stock, farm implements, clothing, magazines, household stuff, all the usual clutter of an upcountry store, to a locked glass-fronted cupboard towards the back. The glass was shattered now, and the doors buckled with heat. I took a hunting knife from a display rack, inserted the point just below the lock, and pushed smartly sideways. There was a dry snap and the doors sagged open. There wasn't much of a choice, just six shotguns; four of them double-barrelled which the British still favour, and two pump action. Four were fire-damaged.

I picked up a Mossberg Model 500, twelve-gauge with six shot capacity, and laid it on the counter. Then I started to attack the warped drawers below the gun rack, praying that I'd find what I wanted, and did so; two packs of double-o buckshot, magnum size. Each shell carried nine lead pellets, a third of an inch in diameter, and capable of dropping a 200-pound deer. And a deer is harder to kill than a man.

I dumped the shells next to the gun, added a can of gun oil, then as an afterthought searched for a scabbard for the hunting knife and put that with the rest. Sadiq watched without comment. Then I tore a piece of paper from a singed pad on the counter, scribbled a note, and dropped it into the open till. I slammed the till drawer shut and walked out of the store with my collection.

'Are you going to hang me for a looter, Captain? .That was an IOU I put in the cash till. The owner can claim from British Electric.'

'If he is still alive,' said Sadiq dryly.

He watched as I ripped open a packet of shells and started to load the gun. 'Are you expecting trouble at the hospital, Mister Mannix?'

'You're a soldier. You ought to know that an unloaded gun is just a piece of junk iron. Let's say I may be expecting trouble, period. And you may not be around to get me out of it.'

'Please do not wave it about, then. I will not ask you for a licence; I am not a policeman. I authorize you to hold it. I would feel the same, myself.'

He surprised me by his acquiescence. I had expected him to make it hard for me, but I was determined to go no further without any sort of personal weapon. I made sure the safety catch was on and then laid the gun down by the side of my seat. 'You have some pretty fine weapons yourself,' I said. 'One of my men was casting an envious eye on your Uzi. Keep a close check on all your guns, Captain; I don't want any of them to go missing.' It was Mick McGrath I was thinking of. Something had made me think quite a while back that I'd always be happier if he remained unarmed.

'I will take care. Take your own precautions, please,' Sadiq said, and we drove on to catch up with the rest of the convoy.

I suppose you could call the setup at Katabisirua's a field hospital. Everyone seemed to have been moved out of the buildings into a field, and nurses scurried about their business. To me it just looked like a lot of people dying in the open air. Last time I'd only seen the offices, and all this was pretty horrifying.

After a while I began to see order in the apparent chaos. Way over at one end were a lot of people, sitting or walking about, some supported by friends. Scattered cooking fires sent plumes of smoke into the air. In the field were rows of makeshift beds with friends or families in attendance. Hastily erected frond screens hid what I assumed to be the worst cases, or perhaps they were latrines. In the middle of the field were tables around which moved nurses in rumpled uniforms. A stretcher was being lifted onto a table presided over by Dr Katabisirua. At another Sister Mary, frail and leaning on a stick, was directing a nurse in a bandaging operation. I couldn't see Sister Ursula anywhere.

Away from this area were two newly filled in trenches and a third trench standing open. Slowly I walked across to look at it. It had been half filled with loose earth and stones and scattered with lime. A single naked foot protruded and I choked on the acridity of the chloride of lime which did not quite hide the stench of decay.

I turned away with sweat banding my forehead, and it had nothing to do with the morning sun.

Sadiq's car had gone but a man was standing waiting for me. He was white, smallish and very weathered, wearing shorts and a torn bush jacket; his left arm was in a sling and his face was covered with abrasions.

'Mannix?' he said huskily.

That's right.'

'You might remember me if I were cleaner. I'm Dan Atheridge. We met in the Luard Club not long ago.'

I did remember him but not as he was right now. Then he had been a brisk, chirpy little man, dapper and immaculate, with snapping blue eyes that gave a friendly gleam in a walnut face. Now the skin was pasty under the surface tan and the eyes had become old and faded. He went on, 'Perhaps I'd have been better off if I'd stayed there . . . and perhaps not. What exactly is going on here? I understand you're moving everybody out. That right?'

I said, 'I could say I was glad to see you, but they're not quite the right words under the circumstances.'

He moved his arm and winced. 'Got a broken flipper- hurts like hell. But I survived.' He nodded towards the open grave. 'Better off than those poor buggers.'

'How come you're here?'

'I run beef on the high ground up past Kanja. I brought a truck down here for servicing three days ago. I was standing on what was the hotel balcony watching the troops go by when all hell let loose. I say, are you really going to evacuate the hospital up to Kanja?'

'We're going to try.'

'Can I come along? My home's up that way. My wife will be worrying.'

I tried to imagine what it would be like to be a woman on a remote farm in the Nyalan uplands with a war breaking out and a husband vanished into a bombed out town, and failed. Then I had another, more practical thought. He'd know the Kanja route backwards.

'You'd be more than welcome. We can find you a meal, perhaps - and a warm beer.'

'Great!' His warm smile lit the weary eyes.

'Mister Mannix!'

I turned to see Dr Kat approaching. 'Damned good chap, that,' Atheridge muttered.

The doctor looked wearier than ever; his eyes were sunken deep into his head and his cheeks were hollow. I judged he was driving himself too hard and made a mental note to see if Sister Ursula could get him to slow down. Come to that, she probably needed slowing down herself.

'We lost fifteen in the night,' Dr Kat said. 'The worst cases, of course.'

'Triage?' Atheridge murmured.

I knew about that. Triage was a grisly business used in many armies, but perfected by the French at Dien Bien Phu. The idea was that the wounded were sorted into three categories; lightly wounded, medium but salvageable, and hopeless. The lightly wounded were the first to get treatment so they could be pushed back into action quickly. And it saved on badly needed medical supplies. But it also meant that a lot of others died who might have been saved; a coldly logical, strictly military solution to a medical problem.

'Nothing of the sort,' snapped Katabisirua. 'They had the best attention but they still died. This is not an army. Even you, Mister Atheridge, waited your turn.'

'I'm sorry. You're quite right, of course.'

Dr Kat turned to me. 'I see you have prepared the convoy for us, Mister Mannix.' We glanced over to the distant, thatch-draped rig. 'I have seen what you have done and am most grateful.'

'Have you seen your new operating theatre? You'd be amazed at how much Sister Ursula has achieved.'

'I would not be amazed in the least. I know her.'

I asked, 'What is your worst problem right now, Doctor?'

'All those who had extensive burns or severe wounds are already dead or will die soon - later today, I should think. Now the death rate will fall rapidly. But it will rise again in two days?'

'Why?'

'Sepsis. I would give a fortune for ten gallons of old-fashioned carbolic. We have no disinfectants left, and we are running out of sterile bandaging. Operating on a patient in these conditions is like signing his death warrant. I cannot heal with my knife in times like this.'

I felt helpless; I had absolutely no medical knowledge and sympathy seemed a pretty useless commodity. I offered the only thing I had. 'We'll get you all to Kanja as quickly as possible, Doctor. We can start in the evening, when it's cooler, and travel through the night. Mister Atheridge will be invaluable, knowing the road so well.'

The doctor nodded and went back to work.

I'd never make a doctor, not even a bad one, because I guess I'm too squeamish. Medical friends have told me it's something you get used to, but I doubt if I ever could. I'm tough enough at boardroom and even field politics, but blood and guts is another matter. What we loaded onto the rig weren't people but cocooned bundles of pain. The burn cases were the worst. It was a long and bitter job but we did it, and when we had got everyone aboard somewhere or other, and as comfortable as possible, I went in search of Katabisirua. I found him with Sister Ursula, and as I approached she was saying in a stern voice, 'Now don't argue, Doctor Kat. I said I'll stay. It's all arranged.' She turned to me and said in no less stern a tone, Try and get him to have some rest, Mister Mannix. And you too. All of you.' She marched off across the field without waiting for an answer, heading for one of Sadiq's trucks which stood isolated from the rest in the comparative shade of a couple of palms. Two soldiers leaned casually against it and close by three white bundles lay on the ground. A couple of Nyalans squatted over them, waving palm fronds to keep off the flies.

I said, 'What's all this about?'

'Those are the last of the bad burn cases, three of them. Two men and a woman. They can't be moved. Sister Ursula will stay with them and comfort them in their dying. When they are dead the soldiers will bury them. Then they'll bring her to join us. I cannot persuade her otherwise.'

I looked at the stiff-backed figure walking away. 'She's quite a lady.'

'Yes. Very stubborn.'

Coming from him that was ridiculous, almost enough to make me smile but not quite. I said, 'We're all set to move. I'm about to check with Basil Kemp. Are you ready to board, Doctor?'

'Yes, I suppose so.' We both glanced briefly round at the desolation, the bloodstained earth, the abandoned beds and fireplaces, the debris and impedimenta of human living strewn all about. There had been no time to tidy up, and no reason either. The vultures could have it all.

I went in search of Basil Kemp. He had been very quiet all day, looking punch-drunk like a concussed boxer after a losing fight. He did his job all right but he did it almost as though by memory. Ben Hammond was forming a perfect backup for him, covering up whatever weaknesses he sensed in his boss, though he was doubtless motivated more by his faith in Geoff Wingstead.

'Doctor Kat's coming on board,' I told him. That's the last of it. We're ready to roll any time you say.'

He had planned to push on well into and maybe right through the night. He had not had time to reconnoitre the road very far ahead, but he had the previous surveys to go by, and there were no very sharp bends or steep gradients in the next twenty miles or so. Up as far as the next river course there were no foreseeable problems. That river lay between us and Kanja which was a pity, but all things being equal we shouldn't have too much trouble. All things weren't equal, of course; somewhere a war was probably still being fought, but in the total absence of any news on that score the only rational thing to do was to ignore it. We'd heard no further aircraft activity and the airport itself, a mile or so outside the town, was reported by Sadiq to be completely deserted.

'Right, we'll get moving. I hope to God these damn thatch roofs don't become a nuisance.' He didn't say it, but I could hear in his voice the phrase, 'Or the people either'. Not the man to depend on for kindness, but at least his concern for his precious rig would keep him attentive.

I drove the hire car. Atheridge and I were in front and between us a Nyalan nurse. She was not on the rig as she had injured a leg. In the back were four of the walking, or rather riding, wounded, three of them teenage children.

As I pulled out to drive to my allocated place, ahead of the rig and among the troop trucks, I said to the girl, 'You do speak English, don't you?'

'Oh yes.'

'Will you tell these people behind to yell out if I do anything to hurt them? I'll try to drive smoothly.'

She half-turned and spoke in Nyalan over her shoulder.

'What's your name, honey?'

'Helen Chula,' she said.

'Can you drive a car, Helen?'

'Yes, I can. But my leg -I would have to go slowly.'

I laughed briefly. 'Don't worry, slowly is what we'll all be doing. If necessary you can take over. Mister Atheridge can't do much with that arm of his, though I guess he could stand on a foot pedal if he had to.'

Sadiq's staff car passed us and I remembered something. I hooted and when he stopped I jumped out and ran over to retrieve the shotgun and pack of shells from his car. Walking past us towards his tractor, Mick McGrath stopped dead and looked at the gun with interest.

'Hey, Mister Mannix. You got yourself a shooter. Now what about me?'

'Who do you want to kill, Mick?'

He shrugged. 'Oh hell, nothing like that. It's just that I feel naked being in a war and me without a gun.'

I grinned. 'Get your own fig leaves.'

He went on and I got back into my car, feeling another slight ripple of unease. Atheridge also eyed the weapon quizzically but said nothing as I stowed it with some difficulty, down alongside the driving seat. Behind us the whole convoy was breaking into the gutteral growls that signified engines churning to life, blue smoke belching from exhaust pipes. I stuck my head out of the car window and listened.

My imagination was irrational. Had there really been cries of pain from the sick and wounded people on the rig, I would never have been able to hear them over the rumbling of the transports. But my stomach clenched in sympathy as I visualized the shuddering, lurching torment of the rig's movement under their bodies. I caught Helen Chula's eyes and knew that she was thinking exactly the same thing.

It had to be done. I shrugged, put the car in gear, and moved out. Vehicle by vehicle, the entire procession pulled away from the hospital and the ruins of Kodowa.

CHAPTER 13

The road beyond Kodowa continued to switchback but the gradients were slightly steeper and the hills longer. The average speed of the rig dropped; it was slow enough downhill but really crawled up the long reverse slopes. In general the speed was about a walking pace. Certainly the flock of Nyalans in our wake, injured though some of them were, had no difficulty in keeping up. They were a hardy people, inured to the heat, and well used to walking those dusty roads.

But we worried about these refugees. We had discussed the need to provide them with food and Sadiq had told us that it would have to be gathered on the way. But there were too many women carrying babies or helping toddlers, old men, and wounded of all ages. It wasn't really our responsibility but how else could we look upon it?

As we got going Helen Chula said, 'If I sleep will you wake me in an hour, please?' and promptly did fall asleep, her head pillowed on Atheridge's good arm. I checked on the four Nyalans behind me; two were asleep and the others stared with wary brown eyes. All were silent.

We travelled for nearly two hours, incredibly slowly, and the morning heat began to give way to the fierce sun of noonday. Atheridge and I didn't talk much because we didn't want to wake the girl. Around us dust billows clouded the little groups of Nyalans into soft focus, and here and there among them walked soldiers. I began to worry about the car engine overheating.

Suddenly I realized that I was being the biggest damn fool in creation; the heat must have fried my brains. I tapped the horn, cut out of the column and nosed through the refugees who were walking ahead of the rig to avoid the worst of the dust. I caught up with Sadiq's command car at the head of the column and waved him down. He had two Nyalan women in the back of his car, but his sergeant was still up front beside him.

I said, 'Captain, this is crazy. There's no law which says that we all have to travel at the same speed as the rig. I could get up to Kanja in under two hours, dump my lot at their hospital and come back for more. What's more, so can all the other faster transport. We could get them organized up there, alert them to what's coming.'

Sadiq shook his head. 'No, Mister Mannix, that would not be a good thing.'

'In God's name, why not?'

He looked up and for a moment I thought he was scanning the sky for aircraft. Then I realized that he had actually looked at a telegraph pole, one of the endless line that accompanied the road, and again I cursed my slow brains. 'Damn it, you've got a handset, Sadiq. We can telephone ahead from here.'

'I have tried. That is what is worrying me - there is nothing. I can understand not being able to reach back to Kodowa, but the line to Kanja is also dead.'

There'll be a lot of people dead if we keep this pace. There seem to be a hell of a lot more than Doctor Kat reckoned on, and most of them aren't injured at all.'

'I cannot stop them, Mister Mannix. They are simply coming with us.'

I felt nonplussed. More mouths to feed? Surely we weren't obliged to lead the entire remaining population of Kodowa to safety.

'Well, how about some of us pushing on? There's my car, the two trucks we found plus your four. Even the tank can move faster than this, and there are six people on board her. The Land Rover has to stay with the rig, but even you -'

'I stay with the convoy. Also my trucks,' said Sadiq flatly.

'Mister Mannix, have you noticed that there is no traffic coming southwards? Have you thought that Kanja might be just like Kodowa?'

I had, and the thought was unnerving. 'If so, now's the time to find out,' I said.

'I am finding out. I have sent a motorcycle patrol on ahead.' He checked his watch. 'They should be back soon with news, perhaps with help too.'

I mentally apologized to Sadiq. I thought he'd been as stupid as me. He went on, 'If they are not back within the hour then I think it will mean bad trouble at Kanja. They will at least be able to warn us, though; they have one of the radio sets.'

I sighed. 'Sorry. You win on all points.'

He acknowledged my apology with a grave nod. 'It is very difficult, sir. I appreciate that you are doing all you can for my people.'

I returned to my car to find Atheridge standing beside it and Helen Chula stretching herself awake. 'Captain Sadiq's on the ball,' I said. But he wasn't listening to me. Slowly, out of the dust and the crowd, another car was pulling ahead to join us. It was a battered Suzuki. I hadn't seen it before.

'Good God, Margretta,' Atheridge breathed. The car stopped alongside us and a woman climbed out stiffly. She was tall, fiftyish and clad in workman-like khaki shirt and pants. Her grey hair was pulled back in a loose bun. She looked as though she was ready to collapse.

'Gretta, my dear girl, how did you get here?' Atheridge asked.

'You're not hard to follow, Dan.' Her voice wasn't much more than a whisper.

'Gretta, this is Neil Mannix - Mannix, I'd like you to meet Doctor Marriot,' Atheridge said formally.

There were deep wrinkles round her eyes and her skin was leathery; she had the look of a woman who'd had too much sun, too much Africa. I turned and opened the passenger door of my car.

'Good morning, doctor. I think you'd better sit down.'

She nodded faintly. 'Thank you. I think it will be better,' she said. Her voice sounded Scandinavian.

'Are you a doctor of medicine?' I asked.

'Medical missionaries, from outside Kodowa,' Atheridge said. He bent over her and said gently, 'Where's Brian, Gretta? We all thought you two were in Port Luard.'

Which explained why nobody had mentioned them before. She spoke to Atheridge for some time in a low voice, and then started crying softly. Helen Chula got out of the car and came round to stay with Dr Marriot while I drew Atheridge aside.

'What is it, Dan?'

'Pretty bloody, I'm afraid. They drove up from the coast to Kodowa just when the air strike hit us. Brian, her husband, was killed outright. She must have been in shock for over a day, you know. She came out to the hospital and found Sister Ursula still there, and insisted on catching up with us.'

'Christ, that's a lousy deal.' We turned back to her.

'You look as though you could do with a drink, ma'am. How about a lukewarm Scotch?' I said.

'It wouldn't be unwelcome.'

I got a bottle from the trunk and poured a measure into a dusty glass. Atheridge glanced wistfully at the bottle but made no comment as I screwed the cap firmly back on. From now on this was strictly a medical reserve.

'I have come to help Doctor Kat,' she said after downing the Scotch in strong swallows. 'The Sister says he will need all the help he can get, and we have often worked together. Where is he, please?'

'Never mind where he is. Right now you need some sleep. Helen, tell her how much better she'll feel for it.'

Helen smiled shyly. 'Indeed the gentleman is right, Doctor Marriot. Sleep for an hour, then Doctor Kat will be most happy to have you with him. I am going to help him now.' She gently lowered the doctor's head onto the back of the seat.

'How's your leg?' I asked her.

'I will be all right up there,' she said, pointing towards the rig. 'I will wait here until it comes.'

In the car Dr Marriot was already sagging into sleep.

'Hop in, Dan. We'll move on slowly. At least moving creates a draught,' I said. The crawling pace was more frustrating than ever but I had to content myself with the thought that Captain Sadiq was coping very efficiently, better than I had done, and that in Dr Margretta Marriot we had a very useful addition to our staff. The Wyvern Travelling Hospital ground on through the hot African day. The sooner we got to Kanja, the better.

Half an hour later the whole pattern changed again. We seemed to be living inside a kaleidoscope which was being shaken by some gigantic hand. A motorcyclist, one of Sadiq's outflankers, roared up and said that Captain Sadiq would like to see me. I pulled out of line hoping not to disturb Dr Marriot, though I doubted if anything short of an earthquake would waken her.

Kemp and Wingstead were already with Sadiq, talking to two white men, more strangers. Behind them was a big dreamboat of an American car which looked as out of place in that setting as an aircraft carrier would on Lake Geneva. Atheridge and I got out and joined them.

One of the men was tall, loose-limbed and rangy, wearing denim Levis and a sweat-stained checked shirt, and unbelievably he was crowned by a ten-gallon hat pushed well back on his head. I looked at his feet; no spurs, but he did wear hand-stitched high heeled boots. He looked like Clint Eastwood. I expected him to produce a pack of Marlboros or a sack of Bull Durham tobacco.

By comparison the other guy was conventional. He was shorter, broad-shouldered and paunchy, and dressed in a manner more suitable for Africa; khaki pants and a bush jacket. Both looked dusty and weary, the norm for all of us.

I said, 'Hello there. Where did you spring from?'

The tall man turned round. 'Oh, hi. Up the road a way. You folks got the same trouble we have.'

Kemp's face was more strained than usual.

'Neil, there's a bridge down further along the road.'

'Christ! The one you were worried about, way back?'

Kemp nodded. 'Yes. It's completely gone, they've just told us. It spans a ravine. And it's this side of Kanja. It would be.'

Wingstead looked more alert than worried, ready to hurl himself at the next challenge. He was a hard man to faze.

I said, 'I'm Neil Mannix, British Electric. I guess it's a pleasure to meet you, but I'm not sure yet.'

The tall man laughed. 'Likewise. I'm Russ Burns and this is Harry Zimmerman. We're both with Lat-Am Oil. There are some other guys up the road too, by the way - not our lot; a Frenchman and a couple of Russki truckers.'

'What happened? Did you see the bridge go down?'

Burns shook his head. 'We were halfway to the bridge when the planes hit Kodowa. Mind you, we didn't know for sure what the hell was happening but we could guess. We'd seen a lot of troop movement a few days before, and there were stories going round about a rebellion. We couldn't see the town itself but we heard the bombing and saw the smoke. Then we saw the planes going over.'

His hand went to his shirt pocket. 'We didn't know what to do, Harry and me. Decided to push on because we didn't fancy turning back into all that, whatever it was. Then we met up with the Russkies.'

'A convoy, like ours?' I watched with fascination as he took out a pack of cigarettes. By God, they were Marlboros. He even lit one the way they do in the ads, with a long, appreciative draw on the first smoke. He didn't hand them round.

'No, just one big truck. The Frenchman's driving a truck too. He had a buddy he'd dropped off in Kodowa. I guess he must have got caught in the raid. You didn't see him?'

Nobody had. Write off one French trucker, just like that.

'I was shoving my foot through the floorboards the first ten miles after that raid,' Burns said, 'Even though I knew we couldn't outrun a jet. Maybe thirty miles from here we turned a corner and damn near ran into this pipe truck. The Soviets. They hadn't seen or heard anything. Then the Frog guy turned up, him and a nig ... a Nyalan assistant.' He glanced at Sadiq as he said this.

Zimmerman spoke for the first time. 'We four camped together that night, and the next day we pushed on in our car with one of the Russians. I speak Russian a little.' He said this almost apologetically. 'Ten miles on there's this bridge.'

'Was this bridge. By God, it's just rubble at the bottom of that ravine now. Took a real hammering.'

'Was it bombed?' I asked.

'Yeah, I reckon so. We could see the wreckage, five hundred feet down the hillside.'

'Any chance of getting across?' I asked, even though I could already guess the answer.

'No chance. Not for a truck. Not for a one-wheel circus bicycle. There's a gap of more than two hundred feet.'

Burns inhaled deeply. 'We all just stuck around that day. Nobody wanted to make a decision. Our radios only picked up garbage. We couldn't go on, and we didn't feel like coming back into the middle of a shooting war. The Soviets had quite a store of food and the Frenchie had some too. All we had to put in the pool was some beer, and that didn't last long, believe me. Then this morning we decided we'd go two ways; the Frenchie was to have a try at Kodowa with the two Reds, and Harry and me said we'd have a go at getting through the gorge on foot and make for Kanja.'

'Can't say I was hankering for the experience,' put in Harry.

Then just as we were about to get going, up comes these two guys.' Burns indicated Sadiq's riders. 'We thought at first the rebels had caught up with us. Hell of a note, and us with just a couple of popguns between us. Then they told us what was going on back here. It didn't sound real, you know that?'

I made mental note. They had weapons.

Travelling circus,' Kemp muttered.

'Wish it was, buddy. Elephants now, they'd be some use.

Anyway, we changed our plans, left the truckers to wait up ahead, and Harry and me came back to see for ourselves.'

I asked, 'Is it possible to cross on foot?'

'I reckon so, if you're agile.'

I looked at Sadiq. 'So?'

Wingstead said, 'What's the use, Neil? We can't send the wounded and sick that way and even if the Kanja hospital is still in business they can't send help to us. You know what we have to do.'

I nodded. One problem out of a thousand raised its head.

'Basil,' I said, 'how do you turn your rig around?'

'We don't need to,' Kemp said. 'It'll go either way. We just recouple the tractors.' His mind was shifting up through the gears and his face looked less strained as he started calculating. There was nothing better for Basil Kemp than giving him a set of solid logistics to chew on.

Sadiq said, 'What will you do now, Mister Mannix?' He too looked as though the ground had been pulled from under his feet.

I studied our two new arrivals. 'What we're going to do first is get these two gentlemen a beer and a meal apiece. And we have a lady who joined us recently who'd also be glad of something to eat. Geoff, could you get Bishop to organize that? As long as the convoy's stopped, we may as well all stoke up. We'll have a conference afterwards. Captain Sadiq, could you pass the word around that we are no longer going towards Kanja? Everyone must rest, eat if they can, and then be ready to move.'

Wingstead said, 'Who's the lady?'

'She's a medical doctor. She was widowed in the raid on Kodowa, and right now she's asleep in my car. I'm going to have a word with Doctor Kat and I'll take her along. As a matter of fact, Dan knows her quite well . . .'

I tailed off. Behind us, standing quietly, Dan Atheridge looked pasty grey over his tan. During our briefing from the Lat-Am men Atheridge had been listening and their news touched him more closely than any of us. His wife was waiting for him, somewhere beyond Kanja. He was cut off from his home.

'Dan -'

'It's OK. Susie's going to be perfectly safe, I know. You're quite right though, you can't get the patients across the gorge. But I know a way over, a few miles downstream. Perhaps you'll lend me an escort, Captain, and take me there?' He spoke in a flat, controlled voice.

'Don't worry, Dan. We'll get you across,' I said, hoping like hell I could keep my word. 'Come on, you guys, let's get you outside that beer and hear the rest of it.' We got back into my car and turned back towards the rig, Kemp following with the two newcomers. As we drove past the stream of refugees the little huddled groups were preparing for the long drowsy wait. The bush telegraph was way ahead of modern communication.

CHAPTER 14

Dr Margretta Marriot and I stood looking up at the rig. It was an extraordinary sight, covered here and there with windblown thatching, piled with sheet-covered bodies lying on lumpy reed bedding, draped with miscellaneous bits of cloth, towels and pillowcases hung from anything handy to give shade. Figures clambered about the rig carrying bandaging and other necessities. Sister Mary had been forbidden to travel on the rig because of her own precarious health and was standing at the base of the huge wheels shouting instructions to her nurses. Several of our men were helping by supporting those of the wounded who could move about, taking them to and from the makeshift latrines. The chuck wagon was in action as Bishop and young Bing prepared a canned meal for us and our visitors.

During the day Sister Ursula had arrived. She saw me and waved, then lit up on catching sight of Dr Marriot.

'Doctor Gretta! What are you doing here?'

Mick McGrath was at her side instantly to give her a hand down. She knew at once that all was not well, and gently led the doctor away to the far side of the rig.

McGrath said, 'Why have we stopped, Mister Mannix? Rumour is there's more trouble.'

'That there is. There's a bridge down between us and Kanja, and no way we can get there. We haven't made the decision official yet, but I can tell you we're going to have to turn back.'

Take the east-west road, then, like you planned? With all this lot?'

'Maybe. Ask Doctor Kat to come down, would you.'

'He won't come.'

'Why not?'

'He's busy,' McGrath said. 'Soon as we stopped he went into action at the operating table. Right now I think he's lifting off the top of someone's skull.'

I said, 'All right, don't bother him yet. But when you can, tell him that Doctor Marriot is here. I think it will please him. Tell him her husband was killed at Kodowa, though. And I'd like a word with him as soon as possible.'

I walked back to where the Wyvern management and the Lat-Am men were sitting in the shade of the trucks. Atheridge was not with them. As I approached, Wingstead said, 'Neil, I've put Harry and Russ in the picture geographically. They travelled the east-west road, a few months ago and say it's not too bad. The two rivers come together at a place called Makara. It's very small, not much more than a village, but it may be of some strategic importance. It's a crossroads town, the only way up from the coast used to be from Lasulu and Fort Pirie through Makara to here, before Ofanwe's government built the new road direct.'

'Is there a bridge there?'

'Yes, apparently quite good but narrower than the new bridge that you crossed when you met the army. Assuming it's still there. We'll send outriders ahead to find out; if our gallant Captain's on the ball they've already gone. And someone's gone to fetch down Lat-Am's friends to join us.'

'The army might be there. If I were commanding either side I'd like to hold Makara, if it hasn't been bombed into oblivion.'

Wingstead stood up. 'We don't have to make up our minds until we hear the report. Where's Doctor Kat?'

'Operating. He'll join us when he can, and I expect he'll have something to say about all this.'

I too stood up, and as I did so Mick McGrath came over. We knew instantly that something was wrong; he looked like thunder.

'Mister Wingstead, there's trouble,' he said. 'You're about to receive a deputation.'

Five other men were approaching with the dogged stomping walk you see on TV newscasts featuring strikers in action. They appeared to be having an argument with a couple of soldiers in their way, and then came on to face us. I wasn't surprised to see that the ringleader was Bob Sisley, nor that another was Johnny Burke, the man who'd been heard to speak of danger money some time past. The others were Barry Lang, Bob Pitman, and the fifth, who did surprise me, was Ron Jones. They walked into a total silence as we followed Wingstead's lead. I'd handled industrial disputes in my time but here I was an outsider, unless the Wyvern management invoked my aid directly.

Sisley, naturally, was the spokesman. He said, ignoring Wingstead for an easier target, 'Mister Kemp, these Yanks say that the bridge up north has gone, right?'

'That's right.'

I wondered how Burns liked being called a Yank, though he was free enough with derogatory nicknames himself.

'Seems we can't take the rig on, then. You planned for us to go down to Lake Pirie, before we ran into all this crap with the sickies. What's to stop us going there now? You said we could get across the border into a neutral country.'

I felt a wash of disgust at the man, and I saw my thoughts echoed on other faces. The odd thing was that one of those faces belonged to Ron Jones. Kemp still said nothing and Sisley pressed on.

'You've broken your own contract so you can't hold us to ours. We say it's getting dangerous here and we didn't sign on to get involved in any nignog's bloody political duff-ups. We're getting out of here.'

'With the rig?' Kemp asked coldly.

To hell with the rig. We're in a jam. A war's something we didn't bargain for. All we want is out. It's your duty to see us safe, yours and the boss's here.' He indicated Wingstead with an inelegant jerk of his thumb. He may have been a good transport man, Wyvern wouldn't hire less, but he was a nasty piece of work nonetheless.

Wingstead took over smoothly.

'We're taking the rig and all transport back to Kodowa,' he said. 'Including the hospital patients. Once there, we'll reassess the situation and probably, all being well, we'll start back on the road to Port Luard. If we think that unsafe we'll take the secondary road to Fort Pirie. We are all under a strain here, and cut off from vital information, but we'll do the best we can.'

But calm, reasoned argument never did work in these affairs. Sisley made a face grotesque with contempt. 'A strain! Oh, we're under a strain all right. Playing nursemaid to a bunch of blacks who can't take care of themselves and baby-sitting a rig that's junk worthless while the food runs out and the country goes to hell in a handcart. Christ, we haven't even been paid for two weeks. You can fart-arse up and down this bloody road as much as you like, but you'll do it without us.'

'What exactly is it you want?' Wingstead asked.

'We want to get the hell back to Fort Pirie as we planned. With or without the rig - it makes no difference.'

'You didn't plan anything, my friend.' I knew I should stay out of this but I was livid. 'Your boss has run a hell of a risk coming up here to join you, and he's the man who does the planning around here.'

'You keep out of this, Mister Bloody Mannix.'

Wingstead said, 'Bob, this is crazy talk. How far can any of us get without the whole group for support?'

'The group! Christ, old men and babies and walking dead, mealy-mouthed nuns and God knows who else we're dragging around at our heels! Now we hear you're bringing a bunch of damned foreigners into it too. Well, we won't stand for it.'

None of the others said a word. They stood behind him in a tight wall of silent resentment, as Sisley gave full rein to his foul mouth and fouler thoughts. At his reference to the nuns McGrath's breathing deepened steadily. I suspected that an outbreak was imminent and tried to forestall it.

'You can argue shop floor principles all you want with your boss, Sisley,' I said. 'But leave out the personalities, and don't foul-mouth these people like that.'

He rounded on me. 'I told you to shut up, you bigmouth Yank. Keep the hell out of this!' He cocked his arm back like a cobra about to strike. I took a step forward but McGrath grabbed my arm in a steel grip. 'Now, hold it, Mister Mannix,' he said in a cool, soft voice, and then to Sisley, 'Any more lip from you, my lad, and you'll be shitting teeth.' I think it was the matter-of-fact way he said it that made Sisley step back and drop his arm.

For a moment the whole tableau froze; the two groups facing each other, the Lat-Am men and several other Wyvern people crowding up to listen, Atheridge behind them, and myself, McGrath and Sisley in belligerent attitudes front and centre. Then from nowhere Ben Hammond's voice broke in.

'Right, you've had your say, and very well put it was, Bob. Now you'll give Mister Wingstead and Mister Kemp five minutes to talk it over, please. Just you shift along, you chaps, nothing's going to happen for a while. Sandy! Where's that grub you were getting ready? Go on, you lot, get it while it's there. Bert, we've got a spot of bother with the rear left axletree.'

It was masterly. The tableau melted like a spring thaw and I found myself alone with Kemp and Wingstead, shaking our heads with relief and admiration. Hammond's talents seemed boundless.

Wingstead said, 'Sisley and Pitman run the airlift truck. It's obvious they'd be in this together, they've always been buddies and a bit bloody-minded. Johnny Burke is what the Navy would call a sea lawyer, too smart for his own good. He's a fair rigger, though. And Lang and Jones are good drivers. But Sisley and Pitman are the specialists, and we'll need that airlift again. Who else can run it?'

Kemp shook his head but Hammond, who had rejoined us after some skilful marshalling of the men, said, 'I can. I can run any damned machine here if I have to. So could McGrath, come to that.'

'We'll need you both on the rig,' said Kemp.

'No you won't. You're as good on the rig as I am,' Hammond said. 'I could work with Sammy Wilson though.'

'I suppose we must assume that Sisley's had a go at everyone,' I said. 'So whoever wasn't with him is on your side?'

'I have to assume that. I'm surprised about Ron Jones, I must say,' said Wingstead. 'So we've still got Grafton and Proctor, and Ritchie Thorpe too. Thank God you brought him up here, Neil.'

'He might not thank me,' I said.

Our rueful smiles brought a momentary lightening of tension.

'I wouldn't like an inexperienced man on a tractor when it's coupled to the rig,' Kemp said. 'We can get along with three tractors at some expense to our speed. And we can ditch that damned tank. I don't suppose you can drive a tractor, Mannix?' I smiled again, but to myself, at Kemp's single-mindedness. There were times when it came in handy. Right now he was too busy juggling factors to get as fully steamed up at having a mutiny on his hands as any good executive should.

'No, but I might find someone who can.'

Wingstead and Kemp conferred for a while and I left them to it. The breakaway group had taken their food well away from the others, and a huddle of shoulders kept them from having to look at their mates while they were eating. The faithful, as I mentally dubbed them, were laughing and talking loudly to demonstrate their camaraderie and freedom from the guilt of having deserted. It was an interesting example of body language at work and would have delighted any psychologist. The Nyalans, sensing trouble, were keeping well clear, and there was no sign of any of the medical people.

Presently Wingstead called me over.

He said, 'We're going to let them go.'

'You mean fire them?'

'What else? If they don't want to stay I can hardly hold them all prisoner.'

'But how will they manage?'

Wingstead showed that he had become very tough indeed.

That's their problem. I've got ... how many people to take care of, would you say? I didn't ask for it, but I'm stuck with it and I won't weasel out. I can't abandon them all for a few grown men who think they know their own minds.'

Suddenly he looked much older. That often talked of phenomenon, the remoteness of authority, was taking visible hold and he wasn't the boyish, enthusiastic plunger that he'd seemed to be when we first met in the workshop garage in England. He had taken the whole burden of this weird progression on his own shoulders, and in truth there was nowhere else for it to lie. I watched him stand up under the extra load and admired him more than ever.

Tell them to come over, Basil.'

The rebels came back still wary and full of anger. This time, at Wingstead's request, McGrath stayed a little way off and exerted his own powerful authority to keep bystanders back out of earshot. Wingstead said, 'Right, we've had our chat. Are you still sure you want out?'

'Bloody sure. We've had it, all of this.'

'Do you speak for everyone?' Wingstead looked past him to the other four, but no-one spoke. Sisley said, 'You can see that.'

'Right you are then. You can buzz off. All five of you. You're fired.'

The silence this time was almost comical.

Sisley said at last, 'All right then, just you try that. You can't just bloody well fire us! We're under contract, aren't we, Johnny?'

That's right,' Burke said.

'You said yourself that if our contract with Nyala was broken, which it is, then so was yours. Hop it,' Wingstead said.

Then what about our pay? We missed two weeks, plus severance. We want it now.'

I stared at him in astonishment.

'Go on, give them a cheque, Geoff,' I said sarcastically. 'They can cash it at the bank in Kodowa.'

'I'll write vouchers for the lot of you. You can be sure that Wyvern will honour them,' Wingstead said. 'You can collect them from Mister Kemp in one hour's time.'

'We'll do that,' said Sisley. 'But we want some security against them too. We'll take one of the trucks.'

Hammond said, 'The hell you will, Bob!'

'Or the airlift truck. There's room for all of us at a pinch, and it's worth more. Yes, that's what we'll do.'

Hammond was beginning to lose his temper. 'Over my dead body!'

Wingstead held out a hand to calm him. 'There'll be no arguments. I forbid you to touch the transports, Sisley,' he said.

'And just how are you going to stop us?'

This had gone far enough. It was time I intervened. 'You're not taking that airlift truck anywhere. Or any other vehicle. Wyvern Transport is heavily in debt to British Electric and I'm calling that debt. In lieu of payment I am sequestering all their equipment, and that includes all vehicles. Your vouchers will come from me and my company will pay you off, when you claim. If you live to claim. You've got one hour and then you can start walking.'

Sisley gaped at me. He said, 'But Fort Pirie is -'

'About two hundred and fifty miles away. You may find transport before then. Otherwise you can do what the people you call nignogs are doing - hoof it.'

He squared himself for a fight and then surveyed the odds facing him. Behind him his own men murmured uneasily but only Burke raised his voice in actual protest. Hearing it, McGrath came across, fists balled and spoiling for a fight once again, but still with the matter-of-fact air that made him all the more dangerous. The mutineers subsided and backed away.

Sisley mouthed a few more obscenities but we ignored him. Soon they moved off in a tightknit, hostile group and disappeared behind one of the trucks.

'Keep an eye on them, Mick, but no rough stuff,' Hammond said.

Wingstead let out a long steady breath.

'I'd give a lot for a pull from that bottle of Scotch of yours. Or even a warm beer. But I'll settle for a mug of gunfire very gladly indeed.'

'Ditto,' I said, and we grinned at one another.

'You're my boss now, do you know that?'

'Sure I am. And that's my first order: a cup of that damned hellbrew of Bishop's and a plateful of whatever mess he's calling lunch,' I said. 'You too, Basil. Save the figuring for afterwards.'

Later that afternoon I had my chance to talk to Dr Katabisirua. The defection of five of our men troubled him little; they were healthy and capable, and he felt that having taken their own course it was up to them to make it in safety. The addition to our number of two more Americans and the expected arrival of a Frenchman and two Russians also meant little to him, except in so far as he hoped they might have some medical stores in their vehicles. The arrival of Dr Marriot he saw as pure gold.

He fretted about malnutrition, about sepsis, and was more perturbed than he liked to admit about the jolting his patients were receiving. For me, his worst news concerned Max Otter man, who was sinking into unconsciousness and for whom the future looked very grave.

He'd heard about the bridge, of course. 'There is no way to get to Kanja, then? No way at all?' 'Only for fit men on their own feet, Doctor. I'm sorry.' 'Mister Atheridge said he knew a way, I am told.' ' 'Yes,' I said, 'but he's wounded, over fifty, and in some shock. He's driven up there with some soldiers and one of our men to have a look but they won't be back before nightfall, I reckon. I don't think for a moment that they'll find any feasible way of getting across that ravine.'

He sighed. 'Then you are going to turn back.'

'To Kodowa, yes. And then south or west. Probably west. Do you know the town of Makara?, Is there a medical station there?'

But he said that Makara patients had always been brought to him at Kodowa. There wasn't even a trained nurse, only a couple of midwives. Then he brightened. There is the cotton factory,' he said. 'They have very large well-built barns but I have heard that they stand almost empty and the factory is idle. It would make a good place to put all my patients.'

'If it's still intact, yes.' And, I thought, if some regiment or rebel troop hasn't turned it into a barracks first.

Shortly afterwards the two Russians and the Frenchman arrived. The Russians were as alike as peas in a pod, with broad Slavic features and wide grins. They had polysyllabic unpronounceable names and neither spoke more than ten words of English. God knows how they'd managed in earlier days. Zimmerman, who had worked alongside Russians laying pipelines in Iran, was able to interpret reasonably well. Later they became known as Brezhnev and Kosygin to everybody, and didn't seem to mind. Probably the way we said the names they couldn't even recognize them. They were hauling a load of pipe casing northwards to the oilfields.

The Frenchman spoke fair English and was called Antoine Dufour. He was carrying a mixed load for Petrole Meridional. They were all glad of company and resigned to a return journey, but they were unwilling to quit their trucks, especially when they found we had a store of reserve fuel. After a lot of trilingual palaver, Wingstead's French being more than adequate, they agreed to stick with us in a policy of safety in numbers.

So did Russ Burns and Zimmerman. But they had a different problem.

'I hear you have gas,' Burns said. 'We're about dry.'

'We've got gas,' I told him. 'But not to burn up in your goddam air-conditioning, or hauling all that chrome around Africa.' I walked over to look at their car. The overhang behind the rear wheels was over five feet and the decorations in front snarled in a savage grin. 'Your taste in transport is a mite old-fashioned, Texas?'

'That's a good American car. You won't find me driving one of those dinky European models. Hell, I can't get my legs under the wheel. Anyway, it's a company car. It wouldn't look good for an oilman with Lat-Am to drive an economy car; that would show lack of confidence.'

'Very interesting,' I said, 'but so far you've been on the blacktop. Suppose we have to take to the country roads. That thing will lose its exhaust in the first mile, and the sump in the next. It'll scrape its fanny every ten yards.'

'He's right, Russ,' said Zimmerman.

'Oh hell,' Burns said sadly, unwilling to give up his status symbol.

I pointed to a tractor. 'Can either of you drive one of those?'

'I can,' said Zimmerman promptly, 'I started my working life as a trucker. I might need a bit of updating tuition, though.'

'Well, you know our problem. Five guys walked out and two of them were drivers. You won't be asked to drive it coupled up, Kemp wouldn't buy that. I'm leaving the hire car here because it's never going to make the dirt roads. You'll have to do the same, because you get no gas from me. You drive the tractor uncoupled, and take care of the sick folk up on the roof.' I turned to Burns. 'And you can drive with me in the Land Rover. There's plenty of leg room there.'

He sighed and patted his car on the hood. 'So long, baby. It's been nice knowing you.'

It was dark as I'd guessed it would be before Atheridge and his party returned, quiet and dispirited. The ravine crossing which he remembered from many years before was now overgrown, the ledges crumbled and passage impossible. Thorpe told me privately that they had had quite a job persuading Atheridge to return with them; he was passionately determined to try crossing on his own, but he was quite unfit to do so.

Eventually the entire camp settled down to an uneasy night's sleep. The five mutineers, strikers, whatever one wanted to call them, had vanished, their gear gone. Wingstead and I felt itchy with unease about them, both for their safety and for our own future without their expertise. I'd had a guard of soldiers put around every vehicle we possessed, just in case any of them decided to try to collar one. There wasn't much left to say, and at last we all turned in and slept, or tried to, and awaited the coming of morning.

CHAPTER 15

The morning brought the usual crises and problems attendant on any normal start of a run, plus of course the extra ones imposed by our status as a mobile hospital. Somewhere in the middle of it, while Kemp was supervising the recoupling of the tractors to the other end of the rig it was discovered that McGrath was missing. The air was lively with curses as both Kemp and Hammond sought their chief driver. At about the same time Sadiq's sergeant came to tell us that the hire car was missing too.

And then suddenly there was McGrath, walking into our midst with one arm flung round the shoulders of a cowed and nervous Ron Jones. Tailing up behind them were Lang and Bob Pitman, looking equally hangdog, pale and exhausted.

'Mister Kemp,' McGrath called out in a cheerful, boisterous voice, 'these lads have changed their minds and want to come with us. Would you be taking them back onto the payroll? I promised I'd put in a word for them.'

Kemp wasn't sure what to do, and glanced at me for guidance. I shook my head. 'I don't hire and fire around here, Basil. Have a word with Geoff.'

But of course there wasn't any doubt about it really; the hesitation was only for form's sake. After a long private talk Geoff announced that the three delinquents were to be taken back into the fold, and a reallocation of driving jobs ensued, somewhat to Harry Zimmerman's relief.

It was impossible to find out exactly what had happened; McGrath kept busy and enquiries would have to wait until later. Wingstead did tell me that according to all of them, Bob Sisley and Johnny Burke had refused point blank to return when McGrath caught up with them. It seemed that he had taken the car and gone off at first light. The other three were less committed to Sisley's cause and Jones in particular had been a most unwilling mutineer. The three of them would bear careful watching but there was no doubt that we were greatly relieved to have them back.

We camped that night back near Kodowa, but not at the hospital, where Dr Kat decreed that there would be too much danger of infection from the debris left behind. Instead a cleaner site was found further west on the road we were to take. It had been a day wasted. We arrived in the late afternoon and buried our dead, four more, and then began the laborious process of settling in for the night, and of planning the start for Makara in the morning.

At the end of it I had had a gutful. I was weary of talking and of listening, settling arguments, solving problems and doling out sympathy and advice. The only good news we heard all evening was from Dr Marriot, who told us that Max Otterman seemed to be making progress towards recovery.

Eventually I went off for a walk in the warm night. There were refugees everywhere and I had to go a long way to put the camp behind me. I had no fear of meeting wild animals, the noise and stench of our progress had cleared both game and predators for miles around, and as I looked back at the cooking fires glowing like fireflies I wondered where the food was coming from.

I'd been tempted to take the dwindling bottle of whisky with me but had resisted, and now I regretted my self-denial. I stopped well out of sight and earshot of the camp and sat down to soak in the solitude for a spell. Finally, feeling rested, I started back. I'd gone about ten paces when something ahead of me crunched on dry vegetation and my heart thudded. Then a voice said softly, 'Mister Mannix - can I talk to you?'

It was Ron Jones. For a moment I felt a fury of hot resentment at not being left alone even out here. Then I said, 'Jones? What do you want?'

He was still downcast, a shadow of his cheery former self. 'I'm sorry to intrude, Mister Mannix. But I must talk. I have to tell somebody about what happened. But you must promise me not to tell anyone who told you.'

'I don't know what you're talking about.'

'I'll tell you, if you promise first.'

'Be damned to that, Jones. Tell me or not as you please. But I make no bargains.'

He paused, thinking about this, and then said, 'It's about Bob Sisley. He's dead.'

'Dead? What the hell do you mean?'

'He's dead, I tell you. Mick McGrath shot him.'

Christ, I thought. I'd been right. All along I'd had an uneasy feeling about McGrath, and this news came as less of a shock than a grim confirmation of my thoughts. 'You'd better tell me all about it. Let's sit down.'

'But you really mustn't let on who told you,' Jones said again. He sounded terrified and I could hardly blame him.

'All right, I promise. Now tell.'

'It was like this. When we left we took as much of our kit as we could carry and went off towards Kodowa. Bob wanted to nick a truck but they were all guarded. Then he said we'd be sure to find transport in Kodowa. After all, there were lots of cars left behind there.'

He said nothing about the events which had led up to the mutiny, nor about his own reasons for going along with it, and I didn't ask. All that was past history.

'We didn't get very far. Walking, it's not like being in a motor, not out here especially. It was bloody hot and hard going. Those Nyalans, they're pretty tough, I found out . . . anyway we pushed on for a while. We'd nicked some food and beer, before we left. Brad Bishop didn't know that,' he put in, suddenly anxious not to implicate the cook in their actions. It was things like that which separated him from Bob Sisley, who wouldn't have cared a damn.

Then we heard a car and up comes Mick on his own. He tried to talk us into going back, but pretty soon it turned into an argument. He and Bob Sisley got bloody worked up. Then Bob went for him but Mick put him down in the dust easy; he's the bigger man by a long chalk. None of the rest of us wanted a fight except maybe Johnny Burke. But he's no match for Mick either and he didn't even try. To be honest, Barry and Bob Pitman and me, we'd had enough anyway. I really wanted to go back.'

He hesitated and I sensed that the tight wound resolution was dying in him. 'Go on. You can't stop now. You've said too much and too little.'

Then Mick took us off the road and -'

'How do you mean, took you? You didn't have to go anywhere.'

'Yes we did. He had a gun.'

'What kind of gun?'

'An automatic pistol. He took us off the road and down into the bush, where nobody else could see us. Then he said we had to go back or we'd die out there. He said he could beat us into agreeing, one at a time. Starting with Bob Sisley. Bob had some guts. He said Mick couldn't keep us working, couldn't hold a gun on us all the time. He got pretty abusive.'

'Did they fight?'

'Not again. Sisley said a few things he shouldn't and . . . then Mick shot him.'

'Just like that?'

'Yes, Mister Mannix. One second Bob was standing there, and the next he was on the ground. That bloody Irishman shot him through the head and didn't even change his expression!'

He was shivering and his voice wavered. I said, Then what happened?'

'Nobody said anything for a bit. Someone upchucked - hell, it was me. So did Barry. Then Mick said again that we were to go back. He said we'd work the rig, all right. And if any of us talked about what had happened he'd get kneecapped or worse.'

'Kneecapped - that was the word he used?'

'Yes. Bob Pitman got down to look at Sisley and he was stone dead, all right. And while we were all looking. Johnny Burke he took off and ran like hell, through the bush. I thought Mick would shoot him but he didn't even try, and Johnny got clean away.'

'Do you know what happened to him?'

'Nobody does.'

'What happened next?'

'Well, we said OK, we'd go back. And we'd shut up. What else could we do? And anyway we all wanted to come back by then. Christ, I've had this bloody country.'

'What happened to Sisley's body?'

His voice shook again. 'Mick stripped it and him and Barry put it down in a gulley and covered it up a little, not buried. Mick said the wildlife would get him.'

'He was right about that,' I said grimly. 'You did the right thing, telling me about this. Keep your nose clean and there'll be no more trouble out of it for you. I'll do something about McGrath. Go back to the camp now, and get a good night's sleep. You're out of danger, or at least that sort of danger.'

He went, thankfully, and I followed more slowly. I had one more lousy job to do that night. Back at camp I strolled across to the Land Rover and got into it on the passenger side, leaving the door open. There was still some movement here and there and as one of the men walked past I called out to him to find McGrath and tell him I wanted to see him.

I switched on the interior light, took the shotgun I had liberated, emptied and reloaded it. Previously, when I'd tried to put in a fourth shell it wouldn't go, and I had wondered why, but now I had the answer; in the States pump and automatic shotguns are limited to a three-shot capacity when shooting at certain migratory birds. To help remind hunters to keep within the law the makers install a demountable plug in the magazine, and until it's removed the hunter is limited to three fast shots. I guessed the gun makers hadn't bothered to take out the plugs before exporting these weapons.

Now I began to strip the gun. When McGrath came up I was taking the plug out of the magazine. He looked at it with interest. That's a fine scatter-gun,' he said easily. 'Now, how many shots would a thing like that fire before reloading, Mister Mannix?'

'Right now, three. But I'm fixing it to shoot six.' I got the plug out and started to reassemble the gun.

McGrath said, 'You've done that before.'

'Many times.' The gun went together easily. I started to put shells into the magazine and loaded the full six. Then I held the gun casually, not pointing at McGrath but not very far away from him, angled downwards to the ground. 'Now you can tell me what happened to Bob Sisley,' I said.

If I'd hoped to startle him into an admission I was disappointed. His expression didn't change at all. 'So someone told you,' he said easily. 'Now I wonder who it could have been? I'd say Ronnie Jones, wouldn't you?'

'Whoever. And if anything happens to any of those men you'll be in even more trouble than you are now - if possible.'

'I'm in no trouble,' he said.

'You will be if Sadiq strings you up the nearest tree.'

'And who'd tell him?'

'I might.'

He shook his head. 'Not you, Mister Mannix. Mister Kemp now, he might do that, but not you.'

'What makes you say that?' I hadn't meant the interview to go this way, a chatty debate with no overtones of nervousness on his part, but the man did intrigue me. He was the coolest customer I'd ever met.

He grinned. 'Well, you're a lot tougher than Mister Kemp. I think maybe you're nearly as tough as me, with a few differences, you might say. We think the same. We do our own dirty work. You're not going to call in the black captain to do yours for you, any more than I did. We do the things that have to be done.'

'And you think Sisley had to be killed. Is that it?'

'Not at all. It could have been any one of them, to encourage the others as the saying goes, but I reckon Sisley was trouble all down the line. Why carry a burden when you can drop it?'

The echo of Sadiq, both of them using Voltaire's aphorism so glibly and in so similar a set of circumstances, fascinated me against my will. 'I don't need lessons in military philosophy from you, McGrath,' I said. 'What you did was murder.'

'Jesus Christ! You're in the middle of a war here and people are dying all around you, one way or the other. You're trying to save hundreds of lives and you worry about the death of one stinking rat. I'll tell you something. Those other bastards will work from now on. I'll see to that.'

'You won't touch them,' I said.

'I won't have to. You found out; the word will spread to everyone, you'll see. Nobody else is going to turn rat on us, I can promise you . . . and nobody is going to touch me for it.'